the whole of the changes which took place during the period of gradual submergence.
If this is approximately correct, the date at which the submergence began was only 5000 years ago, or about 3000 B.C. The estimate may have to be modified as we obtain better evidence; but it is as well to realize clearly that we are not dealing with a long period, of great geological antiquity; we are dealing with times when the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Minoan civilizations flourished. Northern Europe was then probably barbarous, and metals had not come into use; but the amber trade of the Baltic was probably in full swing. Rumours of any great disaster, such as the submergence of thousands of square miles and the displacement of large populations might spread far and wide along the trade routes. Is it possible that thus originated some of the stories of the deluge?
We will not now pursue this enquiry; but it is well to bear in mind the probability that here geology, archaeology, and history meet and overlap. Any day one of our submerged forests may yield some article of Egyptian manufacture of known date, such as a scarab, which has passed from hand to hand along the ancient trade routes, till it reached a country still living in the Stone Age, where its only use would be in magic. But it might now serve to give us a definite date for one of these submerged forests. It
