Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/283

]. It must not be confounded with the older land surface, nearly at the same horizon, and containing the remains of the mammoth, at St. Audries, near Watchet, in Holyhead Harbour, and off the coast of Yarmouth. Still less must it be confounded with the yet older land surface under the boulder clay of Norfolk and Suffolk, in which are discovered the southern elephant and the other animals described in the sixth chapter of this work. The southern elephant lived in Europe before the mammoth, and the mammoth became extinct before the introduction of the domestic animals. The faunas to which these animals respectively belong indicate the relative antiquity of the three ancient land surfaces containing their remains, which cannot be ascertained in any other way.

The forests and morasses would probably cause the Prehistoric climate to be more damp than that experienced in Britain since the dawn of history; while the larger area of land would produce a greater contrast between the temperature of summer and winter. The presence of the reindeer and the elk as far south as the valley of the Thames points to the same conclusion. The Prehistoric geography, indeed, as well as the climate, represents a middle stage in the series of changes which Britain has undergone in its passage from a continental condition and climate to its present state.

This view is considerably strengthened by the evidence brought forward by Dr. James Geikie as to the geography and climate of North Britain at the time when the forests now submerged were living. "No island," he writes, "of the Orkney or Shetland groups