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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
I. Introductory.—The researches of previous investigators have had the result of showing that the platform on which are planted the British Isles and adjoining parts of the European continent was formerly connected by land with Iceland through the Shetland and Faeröe Islands, and this again with Greenland. This former connection is placed beyond doubt by the character of the fauna and flora. Dr. Wallace includes Iceland in his Palæarctic region, which embraces the British Isles and Europe; and, as Professor Newton has shown, all the land mammalia, with only three exceptions, are European. The exceptions are those of Arctic habitats–the polar bear, the Arctic fox, and a mouse (Mus Icelandicus). Amongst the birds, the peculiar species are allied to those of Europe and the Faeroes. The botany and entomology of Iceland have been described in the Transactions of this Institute by the Eev. Dr. Walker, F.L.S.,3 and his observations bear witness to the former land connection of Iceland with the British Isles. He remarks that “the first thing that strikes a visitor from the latter country is not the number of Arctic species, but the great abundance of plants that are very rare and local in Britain, such as Saxifraga cmspitosa, Lichnis alpina, and Erigeron alpinum, etc.” The disappearance of the former glacial conditions from the British Isles and their continuance in Iceland account for the remarkable abundance of the plants referred to.
Read before the Victoria Institute, May 2nd, 1898. Published by permission of the Council of the Victoria Institute. The full paper, with map, will appear in the forthcoming volume of the Transactions for 1897-98.—E. H.
page 351 note 2 “Geographical Distribution of Animals.”
page 351 note 3 Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxiv, p. 200.Google Scholar
page 352 note 1 Supra cit., p. 241.Google Scholar
page 352 note 2 Trans. Viet. Inst., vol. xxix.Google Scholar
page 353 note 1 I have given a short preliminary notice of the results of my examination of the Admiralty chartsinNature, March 24th, 1898.
page 353 note 2 “The Depths of the Sea,” pls. ii, iv, v (1873).
page 353 note 3 The British platform is described by Professor Spencer, Geological Magazine, No. 403, p. 37 (1898).Google Scholar
page 353 note 4 The sections here described are drawn on the plate which accompanies the original memoir in the Trans. Viet. Inst., vol. xxx, 1898.Google Scholar
page 354 note 1 This statement I have since verified by an examination of the Admiralty chart over the Bay of Biscay, which affords most interesting results, especially in the determination of the channels of the rivers Loire and Adonr traversing- the platform, and descending through deep cafions to the base of the great escarpment.—E. H. (April, 1898).
page 355 note 1 Address to Geographical Section, Brit. Assoc, 1892: Proc. Koy. Geog. Soc. Sept., 1892, p. 639. The author, however, clearly describes the mode oi formation by marine action on emergent lands of such plateaux as the British platform, p. 644.Google Scholar
page 356 note 1 The deepest point shown hy the soundings is 95 fathoms,
page 356 note 2 “while the bordering level of the sea bed is 36 fathoms.” Man was not present to view the scene presented by the British Isles at this time; but we may easily reproduce before our miuds its grandeur as visible from the ocean at a distance of a few miles from the coast.infront would rise the lofty terraced cliffs, several thousand feet in height, and stretching away to the north and south in bold headlands and wide bays till lost to sight in the distance; while, planted on the nearly level terrace above, would be seen in the far distance the moiintam heights robed in a white mantle of snow.
page 356 note 3 “On Another Possible Cause of the Glacial Epoch”: Trans. Viet, lnst., 1898.Google Scholar
page 356 note 1 Professor T. McK. Hughes, in his interesting paper on “The Evidence of Later Movements of Elevation and Depression in the British Isles,” read before the Institute in 1879, postulates a rise of the land to the extent of several thousand feet and infers the climatic changes which would thence result. I hope he will now concur with me that such a rise has actually taken place.—E. H.