Fig. 14—The Four-horned Sting-fish (Cottus quadricornis), reduced from Professor Smitt's figure in the Fishes of Scandinavia.
This disposes, therefore, of Professor Credner's main criticisms. As for the fauna of the relict lakes, we are now only concerned with those of Northern Russia, Finland, and Sweden. In the lakes Wetter and Wener in the latter country occurs the four-horned sting-fish (Cottus quadricornis, [Fig. 14]), which, as we have learned, also inhabits the northern part of the Baltic, and, as was suggested, migrated there at a time when the latter was connected with the White Sea. The principal food of this little fish consists in a marine Crustacean called Idotea entomon, an animal allied to our common woodlouse. This is a typical marine species, but it occurs also in the relict lakes of the countries mentioned above, as well as in the Baltic and the Caspian. Perhaps the best known form with a similar range is the Schizopod crustacean Mysis relicta[3] ([Fig. 15]), which is clearly a descendant of the Arctic marine Mysis oculata, of which it was formerly considered a mere variety. The two Amphipods Gammaracanthus relictus and Pontoporeia affinis and the Copepod Limnocalanus macrurus, are three additional well-known Arctic crustaceans whose range differs but little from those above-mentioned.[4]
Fig. 15—Mysis relicta, a small shrimp-like Crustacean, after Sars (enlarged).
These facts all go to prove that the sea formerly covered the lowlands of Sweden, Finland, and Northern Russia. The fauna of Scandinavia, as we have seen, indicates that during the greater part of the Glacial period the country was not directly connected with continental Europe as it is now. It seems that the barrier of separation probably consisted of a broad expanse of ocean on which floated numerous icebergs, which originated from the Scandinavian glaciers as they reached the sea. This was a cold sea, whilst Western Scandinavia was washed by the Gulf Stream (vide [Fig. 12], p. [156]). We might look upon the boulder-clay which covers such vast tracts of country in Northern Germany, Russia, and Holland as deposits formed by this sea rather than the ground-moraine of a huge Scandinavian glacier. I shall refer to this subject again in the next chapter; meanwhile it may be remembered that the boulder-clay of Northern Europe exactly resembles in all important particulars the similar accumulations met with in the British Islands. They resemble one another also in the occasional occurrence of sea-shells, the frequent appearance of bedded deposits, and the often inexplicable course taken by boulders from their source of origin. There occurs often a singular mixture and an apparent crossing of the paths of boulders in the boulder-clay. Professor Bonney remarks (p. 280) that these are less difficult to explain on the hypothesis of distribution by floating ice than on that of transport by land-ice, because, in the former case, though the drift of winds and currents would be generally in one direction, both might be varied at particular seasons. So far as concerns the distribution and thickness of the glacial deposits, he says there is not much to choose between either hypothesis; but on that of land-ice it is extremely difficult to explain the intercalation of perfectly stratified sands and gravels and of boulder-clay, as well as the not infrequent signs of bedding in the latter. Two divisions are generally recognisable in the continental boulder-clay—a lower and an upper. An inter-glacial phase characterised by a less severe climate is assumed to have intervened between the deposition of the two. In Russia no such division can as a rule be made out, and sea-shells are either entirely absent or extremely scarce. It has been pointed out by Professor J. Geikie that the erratics—a name applied to boulders in boulder-clay—in the upper division have travelled in a different direction from those contained in the lower. Taking for granted that the boulder-clay is a marine deposit, this phenomenon seems to indicate that the current which prevailed during the early part of the Glacial period in this North European ocean was different from the prevailing current during the latter part. I have attempted to explain this circumstance by the supposition that during the early part of the Glacial period the Northern Sea had a connection with the Ponto-Caspian Sea—a sea formed by the junction of the Black Sea and the Caspian ([Fig. 12], p. [156]). There is geological evidence, as will be explained in the following chapter, that the area of these two seas was considerably larger in glacial times than it is now, and that they were joined across the valley of the Manytch. After the inter-glacial phase of the Glacial period, the North European Ocean became connected with the Atlantic Ocean across the north of England ([Fig. 6], p. [126]), the junction between the former and the Ponto-Caspian having meanwhile become dry land ([Fig. 13], p. [170]). A fresh current, now flowing westward, was set up in the North European Ocean, which accounts for the fact just cited that the erratics in the upper continental boulder-clay have travelled in a different direction from those in the lower. The boulder-clay laid down by the sea on the midland and northern counties of England, just as was the case with the similar deposit on the Continent, is generally accredited to the action of land-ice. It is by most geologists looked upon as the ground-moraine, partly of the huge Scandinavian glacier which is supposed to have impinged upon the English coast, partly of local British glaciers.
But renewed geological investigations on this point throw doubts upon these theories. Thus Mr. Harmer remarks in a recent contribution to glacial literature (p. 775), that "it is difficult to see how the Baltic glacier could have reached East Anglia, though ice-floes with Scandinavian boulders might easily have done so, while had the Norwegian ice filled the North Sea and overflowed the county of Norfolk, some evidence of its presence ought to be found in the glacial beds of Holland."
All the phenomena of distribution of the British fauna and flora are, as we have seen, much more easily explained by the supposition of a damp, temperate climate, such as might have been produced by the proximity of a cold sea on one side and of a warm one at the other, than by invoking an arctic climate with enormous glaciers. Most of the living animals and plants would have been exterminated under the latter conditions. Palæontological evidence in Great Britain clearly indicates that southern species migrated first to these islands, that Arctic species were then driven south from their native lands,—probably owing insufficient food-supply and climatic changes in the north,—that finally eastern species invaded the country—all this without the annual temperature of Europe being apparently much affected. For we find in the British pleistocene deposits—and Mr. Lydekker draws particular attention to this remarkable fact—a curious intermingling of southern and northern mammals, which undoubtedly lived side by side. Everybody knows that northern and Arctic species can live perfectly well in a temperate climate, but that it is almost impossible to acclimatise southern animals in an Arctic or even temperate one. We have in this circumstance almost a proof, therefore, that the climate cannot have been very cold. Though a cold sea bathed the shores of Eastern England, and even eventually invaded a portion of Northern England, the warm ocean on the west must have effectually prevented any great lowering of temperature.