. The earth and its inhabitants .. . 0 100 MUes. over a wide area; and for such a cause the majority of geologists go back to theglacial epoch, when glaciers, laden with the waste of the land, drifted into thisancient gulf of the Atlantic, and there deposited their loads.* Even at the presentday there are agencies at work which tend to fill up the basin of the North Sea. * Eamsay, Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain. THE BEITISH SEAS. 5 Glaciers are no longer stranded on its shores, but rivers deposit in it the sedimentwith which they are charged, whilst the arctic current, which m
. The earth and its inhabitants .. . 0 100 MUes. over a wide area; and for such a cause the majority of geologists go back to theglacial epoch, when glaciers, laden with the waste of the land, drifted into thisancient gulf of the Atlantic, and there deposited their loads.* Even at the presentday there are agencies at work which tend to fill up the basin of the North Sea. * Eamsay, Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain. THE BEITISH SEAS. 5 Glaciers are no longer stranded on its shores, but rivers deposit in it the sedimentwith which they are charged, whilst the arctic current, which makes itself feeblyfelt in this vast gulf, conveys into it the pumice-stone ejected from the volcanoesof Iceland and Jan Mayen.* Deposition is consequently still going on, though ata much slower rate than formerly. But how are we to explain the gradual filHngup of the North Sea, whilst the abyssal channel which separates it from J^orway Fig- 2.—The Strait of Dover and the Exglish an Admiialtj- Chart. Scale 1 : 795, lu Miles. retains its depth of hundreds of fathoms ? Is it not that its very depth savedit from becoming the depository of glacial drift ? The glaciers carried south-ward by currents and northerly winds may be supposed to have stranded onlyafter they had reached the shallower waters of the North Sea, when, meltingunder the influence of the sun, they deposited upon its bottom the debris theycarried. The Strait of Dover, which joins the North Sea to the English Channel, has awidth of only 20 miles, and in depth nowhere exceeds 180 feet. The navigation is * * Annales Hydrographiques, 4e trimestre, 1873. g THE BRITISH ISLES. not without danger, owing to conflicting currents and the sand-banks which cumberthe approaches. The most famous of these banks are the Goodwins, off the coastof Kent, within which lies the roadstead called the Downs, a great resort of vesselswaiting for favourable winds and tides. The English Channel gradually increases Fig. 3.—
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
