ken by the British government have established the fact, that the
ocean deepens very gradually away from the shores of the main-land until
a depth of six hundred feet is reached, when the shore falls away very
suddenly. This is supposed to be the sea-coast of that time. The English
Channel would then have existed as the valley of the Seine, and the
Rhine have prolonged its flow over the present bed of the North Sea.
As the land stood at this height through a large portion of the Glacial
Age, it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that primitive tribes
hunted back and forth along these valleys, and so doubtless many
convincing proofs of their presence at that early day lie buried
underneath the waves of the sea. In like manner, at the south, we know
that elephants, lions, and hyenas passed freely from Africa to Spain,
Italy, and the Island of Crete,<7> and, consequently, the Mediterranean
Sea must have been bridged in one or two places at least.<8>

The change from Pliocene times to early Glacial was so gradual that
quite a number of animals lived on from one to the other, and, as we
have already stated, one of these species has even survived to our own
times.<9>

But we note the arrival in Europe of a great number of new animals, and
the diversity of species seems at first an inexplicable riddle. The key,
however, is to be found in the great climatic changes, which we have
already mentioned as occurring during this age. On the one hand, we find
such animals as the musk-sheep, reindeer, and arctic fox, animals whose
natural home is in high northern latitudes, where snow and ice prevail
most of the year.<10> Yet during this age they lived in Southern France
and Italy, which must then have had a far different climate than that at
present.

Were we to confine our attention to these alone we would be convinced
that the climate of Europe at that time was arctic in its severity. But
side by side with the remains of these animals are found others which
imply an altogether different climate. The hippopotamus, now frequenting
the rivers of Africa, during that period roamed as far north as
Yorkshire, England.<11> This animal could not live in a country where
the cold was severe enough to form ice on the rivers. The remains of
a number of other animals are found whose natural home is in the warm
regions of the earth.<12> These two groups of animals, one from the
north and one from the south, show how varied was the climate of E