Lurk in its cells—and thinks himself enriched,
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!
The Excursion, bk. iii.
[54] St. Ronan's Well, chap. ii. The passage is quoted postea p. 166.
IV
The Origin of the Scenery of the British Islands[55]
The insular position of these islands, which we are apt to regard as an essential and aboriginal feature, is merely accidental, and has not always been maintained. The intimate relation of Britain with the Continent is well shown by the Admiralty charts. If the west of Europe were elevated 200 feet—that is, the height of the London Monument—the Straits of Dover, half of the North Sea, and a large part of the English Channel would be turned into dry land. If the elevation extended to 600 feet—that is, merely the united heights of St. Paul's and the Monument—the whole of the North Sea, the Baltic, and the English Channel would become land. There would likewise be added to the European area a belt of territory from 100 to 150 miles broad, stretching to the west of Ireland and Scotland.
With an uprise of 600 feet a vast plain would unite Britain to Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and would present two platforms,[56] of which the more southerly would stretch from what are now the Straits of Dover northward to the northern edge of the Dogger Bank, where a steep declivity, doubtless a prolongation of the Jurassic and Cretaceous escarpments of Yorkshire, descends to the northern or lower platform. This submarine escarpment is trenched towards the west by a magnificent valley through which the united waters of the Rhine and Thames would flow, between the Dogger Bank and the Yorkshire cliffs. Another gap further east would allow the combined Elbe and Weser to escape into the northern plain. Possibly all these rivers would unite on that plain, but, in any case, they would fall into a noble fjord which would then be revealed following the trend of the southern coast line of Norway. Altogether an area more than thrice that of Britain would be added to Europe. By a total rise of 1800 feet, Britain would be united to the Faroe Islands and Iceland; while the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans would be separated.