We have now traced the geological history of the Cheviot district
down to the "Recent Period." From this point the story of the past
must be continued by the archæologist, and into his province I will
not trespass further than to indicate some of the more remarkable
traces which the early human occupants of the upland valleys left
behind them. Before doing so, however, I may briefly recapitulate the
general results we have obtained from our rapid review of the glacial
and post-glacial deposits. A study of these has taught us that the
Cheviot Hills and the adjoining low-grounds participated in those
arctic conditions under the influence of which all Scotland and a
large portion of England were buried beneath a wide-spread _mer de
glace_. The Cheviots themselves were completely smothered under a mass
of glacier-ice which extended across the vale of the Tweed, and was
continuous over the Lammermuirs with the vast sheet that filled all the
great lowlands of central Scotland. But although the Cheviots were thus
overwhelmed, they yet served to divide the ice-flow, for we find that
the gelid masses moved outwards from the hills towards the valley of
the Tweed, turning gradually away to east and south-east to creep over
the north part of England. How far south the ice-sheet reached has not
yet been determined, but its _moraine profonde_ or till may be traced
to the edge of the Thames valley; and I have picked up in Norfolk
ice-worn fragments of igneous rock, which have been derived from
the Cheviots themselves, showing that Scottish ice actually invaded
the low-grounds south of the Wash. Such severe glacial conditions,
after continuing for a long time, were interrupted more than once by
intervening periods characterised by a milder and more genial climate.
The great _mer de glace_ then melted out of the valleys, and for
aught that we can say the snow and ice may even have vanished from
the hills themselves. Vegetation now covered the country, and herds
of the mammoth, the old extinct ox, the Irish elk, the reindeer, the
horse, and probably other creatures, roamed over the now deserted
beds of the glaciers. It was probably at this time that Palæolithic
man lived in Britain. He was contemporaneous with lions, elephants,
rhinoceroses, hippopotami, mammoths, reindeer, and other animals of
southern and northern habitats, the former living in England when the
climate was genial, but being replaced by the northern species when
the temperature began again to fall, and snow and glaciers once more
reappeared and crept downwards and outwards from the hills. Towards
the close of the interglacial period the land became submerged to a
considerable extent, and species of arctic shells lived over the sites
of the drowned land where the mammoth and its congeners had flourished.
By-and-by the cold so far increased that another great ice-sheet filled
up the shallow sea, and as it slowly ground over the face of the land
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