Important as the changes were in Britain, they were slight as compared with those which affected Europe and many parts of Asia. The great mountain chains of the Old World received their maximum uplift during this great period of earth-movement, and orogenic structures were impressed upon the rocks of many regions, for the Tertiary Mountain Chains of the Old World have an Alpine structure impressed upon them as the result of intense lateral pressure, accordingly we find the Eocene strata lifted far above their original level to heights of 8,000 feet in the Alps and over 12,000 feet in the Himalayas. Away from these marked uplifts epeirogenic movements caused the disappearance of the seas of earlier Eocene times, so that towards the close of the Miocene Period, the main features of the Eurasian continent were much as they are now. The present drainage-systems must have originated at the same time, and the sculpture of our continent has been carried on more or less continuously by subaerial agents from Miocene times to the present day. That any addition to the total area of land was made is doubtful. The land which appears to have existed to the west of Britain during Cretaceous and Eocene times finally disappeared beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and the movement probably gave rise to the prominent submarine feature which now exists at some distance from the coast of Ireland. A great marine period is now existent in our ocean areas, but so far as the existing continents are concerned, we are living on the fourth continental period which practically came into existence in Miocene times. The strike of the uplifted strata naturally coincides on the whole with the axes of the major uplifts, and accordingly we find the Mesozoic and early Tertiary strata folded around axes which have a prevalent east and west direction, with others which have a trend at right angles to this. The strike of the British Mesozoic rocks seems to have been determined by each of these sets of movements, so that although it is east and west in the south of England, it runs north and south in the eastern counties north of the Thames. In America, although epeirogenic movements had occurred before Miocene times, with the formation of wide continental tracts, these appear to have been of the nature of plains, diversified by extensive inland sheets of water, and uplift of orogenic character converted these plains into uneven tracts in Miocene times. Many of the movements in America, which like those of Europe are still progressing with enfeebled power, differ from those of Eurasia, giving rise to raised monoclinal blocks rather than to violent folds of Alpine character, as seen in the western territories of North America, and as proved also by the differential movements which are now known to affect the Atlantic coast of that continent.