SOME GENERAL RESULTS OF GLACIAL EROSION. 573 



islets. Over the area thus submerged icebergs loosened from the 

 Scandinavian ice-field drifted. 



At the same time, partly by subsidence, and therefore slackened 

 water-currents, and partly by moderated climate and melting of glaciers, 

 there was a flooded condition of rivers and lakes in Middle Europe, 

 France, Germany, and Switzerland. At the same time, also, the north- 

 ern portion of Asia and the lake-region of that continent were sub- 

 merged. The Caspian Sea, Lake Aral, and other lakes in that region, 

 were probably then united into one great inland sea, connected either 

 with the Black Sea or the then greatly-extended Arctic Ocean, or with 

 both.* 



Evidences of this condition of things are found in old sea-margins, 

 lake-margins, river-terraces, and flood -plain deposits. 



3. Epoch of Re-elevation — Terrace Epoch.— The period of subsid- 

 ence was followed, as in America, by a re-elevation, shown by succes- 

 sive beaches and terraces on sea-shores, about lakes, and along rivers. 

 In some places, the re-elevation seems to have gone beyond the present 

 level, and the British Isles for a brief time were again united to the 

 continent. Then the land went down again to its present condition. 



Southern Hemisphere. 



Similar phenomena to those described have been observed also in 

 the Southern Hemisphere, especially in New Zealand; but whether 

 these were contemporaneous, or alternating with those of the North- 

 ern Hemisphere, is uncertain. 



Some General Results of Glacial Erosion. 



1. Fiords. — We have seen that the phenomena of rivers, in the 

 region affected by the Drift, show elevation, then subsidence, and then 

 re-elevation to a less height than the first. The first elevation is shown 

 in their deep, ancient beds ; the subsidence, in the filling up of these 

 with deposit ; the re-elevation, in the cutting down into the deposit, and 

 forming terraces. Now, all these changes are also shown in the phe- 

 nomena of fiords (Dana). 



It will be remembered (p. 38) that the Norway coast is wonderfully 

 bold and deeply dissected, consisting of high, rocky headlands, sepa- 

 rated by deep inlets running 50 to 100 miles into the country ; and off 

 shore there is a line of high, rocky isles, evidently the remnants of an 

 old shore-line. These deep inlets are called in Norway Fiords ; and 

 the name is now used for all such deep inlets separating high head- 

 lands. The coast of Greenland has a precisely similar structure. It, 



* Nature, vol. xiii, p. 74 ; Natural History Magazine, vol. xvii, p. 176 ; Archives des 

 Sciences, vol. liv, p. 427. 



