This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IV]
THE DOGGER BANK
49

deposits, seems to characterise great part of the Dutch plain. It points to a long period of subsidence, broken by two intervals of stationary sea-level, when peat-mosses flourished and spread far and wide over the flat, interspersed with shallow lakes, like the Norfolk broads.

The enclosed and almost tideless Baltic apparently tells the same story, for at Rostock at its southern end, a submerged peat-bed has been met with at a depth of 46 feet.

On passing northward into Scandinavia we enter an area in which, as in Scotland, recent changes in sea-level have been complicated by tilting, so that ancient beach-lines no longer correspond in elevation at different places. The deformation has been so great that it is impossible to trace the submerged forests; they may be represented in the north by the raised beaches, which in Norway and Sweden, as in Scotland and the north of Ireland, seem to belong to a far more recent period than the raised beaches of the south of England. It seems useless to attempt to continue our researches on submerged forests further in this direction, especially as during the latest stages, when we know England was sinking, Gothland appears to have been slowly rising. Those who wish to learn about the changes that took place in the south of Sweden should refer to the recent monograph by Dr Munthe.