556 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



ceeded by less clement conditions ; while, at the same time, the 

 British area was gradually insulated. Snow-fields and glaciers 

 again reappeared in our mountain-regions, and the sea rose upon 

 our coasts to a height of some 40 or 50 feet above its present 

 level. At this time Neolithic man frequented our shores, and 

 harpooned the Greenland whale in our waters. To the same, or 

 approximately the same, period probably belong the kitchen- 

 middens of Denmark. The great forests had already decayed 

 in many places, and were gradually overgrown with mosses and 

 converted into boggy wastes, while the elk and the reindeer had 

 once more descended to the low grounds of Germany. The 

 climate had then become cold and extremely humid — it was, in 

 short, a relapse to a kind of modified glacial epoch. 



By and by, however, another change ensued. The climate 

 gradually recovered something of its old genial character, the 

 local glaciers of the Scottish mountains melted away, and the 

 forests again began to extend their bounds in temperate Europe. 

 The boggy wastes became dry and were overgrown by trees 

 which, in Ireland, Northern England, Scotland, and Scandinavia 

 appear to have been principally pine. At this period the sea 

 retired from our coasts, and the land in North-western Europe 

 attained a somewhat greater extent. 



As years rolled on, yet another change took place. The 

 climate of North-western Europe again became more humid, and 

 the conditions less suited to the growth of great forests. Wide 

 areas were by and by displenished, and peat -bogs extended 

 themselves over the prostrate trees. At the same period the sea 

 advanced upon the shores of Britain to some 20 or 30 feet, and 

 upon those of Scania to 10 or 15 feet above its present limits. 

 It was during this second humid or peat-accumulating epoch 

 that the use of bronze became known to the tribes occupying 

 Britain. The introduction of iron followed, geologically speak- 

 ing, very shortly afterwards. Thus the disappearance of humid 

 conditions and the retreat of the sea to its present level appear 

 to have taken place during the so-called Age of Iron. 



The changes effected by the hand of man do not come within 



