Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
In the preceding chapters I have endeavoured to show that the study of
the successive phases of the glacial period in Europe, and the enduring
marks which they have left on many of the solid rocks and on the
character of the superficial drift are of great assistance in enabling
us to appreciate the vast lapse of ages which are comprised in the
Pleistocene epoch. They enlarge at the same time our conception of the
antiquity, not only of the living species of animals and plants but
of their present geographical distribution, and throw light on the
chronological relations of these species to the earliest date yet
ascertained for the existence of the human race. That date, it will be
seen, is very remote if compared to the times of history and tradition,
yet very modern if contrasted with the length of time during which all
the living testacea, and even many of the mammalia, have inhabited the
globe.
In order to render my account of the phenomena of the glacial epoch
more complete, I shall describe in this chapter some other changes in
physical geography and in the internal structure of the earth's crust,
which have happened in the Pleistocene period, because they differ
in kind from any previously alluded to, and are of a class which were
thought by the earlier geologists to belong exclusively to epochs
anterior to the origin of the existing fauna and flora. Of this nature
are those faults and violent local dislocations of the rocks, and those
sharp bendings and foldings of the strata, which we so often behold in
mountain chains, and sometimes in low countries also, especially where
the rock-formations are of ancient date.
POST-GLACIAL DISLOCATIONS AND FOLDINGS OF CRETACEOUS AND DRIFT STRATA IN
THE ISLAND OF MOEN, DENMARK.
A striking illustration of such convulsions of Pleistocene date may
be seen in the Danish island of Moen, which is situated about 50 miles
south of Copenhagen. The island is about 60 miles in circumference, and
consists of white Chalk, several hundred feet thick, overlaid by
boulder clay and sand, or glacial drift which is made up of several
subdivisions, some unstratified and others stratified, the whole having
a mean thickness of 60 feet, but sometimes attaining nearly twice that
thickness. In one of the oldest members of the formation fossil marine
shells of existing species have been found.
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