Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/100

by the waves on the submergence of that part of the Pleiocene Land.

The British Pleiocene strata^[1] are divided into the following groups.

Newer Pleiocene of Lyell.

Feet.

Westleton beds
Chillesford Clay.

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1. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1. Marine ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

   ?

Aldeby beds,
Norwich Crag
(Mammalia).

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1. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1. Fluvio-Marine ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Older Pleiocene of Lyell.

Red Crag
Phosphatic or
coprolite beds.

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1. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1. Marine ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

   20?

Coralline Crag
(Polyzoa).

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1. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1. Marine ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Geography of Britain in the Pleiocene Age.

The Pleiocene coast-line of Great Britain is marked by the marine deposits above mentioned in East Anglia, which were accumulated by the sea that swept over the district to the east of a line passing from the mouth of the Thames to Colchester and Ely, and extended in the direction of Holland and Belgium as in the Meiocene age (Fig. 10).

The North Sea, which was small in the Meiocene age (Fig. 6), and did not touch our present coast-line, was now gradually enlarged at the expense of the land, and ultimately a direct communication was made with the Arctic Sea, by the sinking of the land extending from the Scandinavian mountains and the British Isles to Iceland and Greenland on the one hand, and Spitzbergen on the other. This depression is proved by the presence of northern types of marine shells as far south as the coasts

1. See Prestwich, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxvii. pp. 115, 325, 452.