The projecting portion of the terrace, which was cut through in making the canal, is called the hill of Caberg, which is flat-topped, 60 feet high, and has a steep slope on both sides towards the alluvial plain. M. van Binkhorst (who is the author of some valuable works on the palaeontology of the Maestricht Chalk) has recently visited Leyden, and ascertained that the human fossil above mentioned is still entire in the museum of the University. Although we had no opportunity of verifying the authenticity of Professor Crahay's statements, we could see no reason for suspecting the human jaw to belong to a different geological period from that of the extinct elephant. If this were granted, it might have no claims to a higher antiquity than the human remains which Dr. Schmerling disentombed from the Belgian caverns; but the fact of their occurring in a Pleistocene alluvial deposit in the open plains, would be one of the first examples of such a phenomenon. The top of the hill of Caberg is not so high above the Meuse as is the terrace of St. Acheul with its flint implements above the Somme, but at St. Acheul no human bones have yet been detected.
In the museum at Maestricht are preserved a human frontal and a pelvic bone, stained of a dark peaty colour; the frontal very remarkable for its lowness and the prominence of the superciliary ridges, which resemble those of the Borreby skull, Figure 5. These remains may be the same as those alluded to by Professor Crahay in his memoir, where he says that in a black deposit in the suburbs of Hocht were found leaves, nuts, and freshwater shells in a very perfect state, and a human skull of a dark colour. They were of an age long posterior to that of the loess containing the bones of elephants and in which the human jaw now at Leyden is said to have been embedded.
CHAPTER 17. — POST-GLACIAL DISLOCATIONS AND FOLDINGS OF CRETACEOUS AND
DRIFT STRATA IN THE ISLAND OF MOEN, IN DENMARK.
Geological Structure of the Island of Moen.
Great Disturbances of the Chalk posterior in Date to the
Glacial Drift, with Recent Shells.
M. Puggaard's Sections of the Cliffs of Moen.
Flexures and Faults common to the Chalk and Glacial Drift.
Different Direction of the Lines of successive Movement,
Fracture, and Flexure.
Undisturbed Condition of the Rocks in the adjoining Danish Islands.
Unequal Movements of Upheaval in Finmark.
Earthquake of New Zealand in 1855.
Predominance in all Ages of uniform Continental Movements over
those by which the Rocks are locally convulsed.
In the preceding chapters I have endeavoured to show that the study of the successive phases of the glacial period in Europe, and the enduring marks which they have left on many of the solid rocks and on the character of the superficial drift are of great assistance in enabling us to appreciate the vast lapse of ages which are comprised in the Pleistocene epoch. They enlarge at the same time our conception of the antiquity, not only of the living species of animals and plants but of their present geographical distribution, and throw light on the chronological relations of these species to the earliest date yet ascertained for the existence of the human race. That date, it will be seen, is very remote if compared to the times of history and tradition, yet very modern if contrasted with the length of time during which all the living testacea, and even many of the mammalia, have inhabited the globe.
In order to render my account of the phenomena of the glacial epoch more complete, I shall describe in this chapter some other changes in physical geography and in the internal structure of the earth's crust, which have happened in the Pleistocene period, because they differ in kind from any previously alluded to, and are of a class which were thought by the earlier geologists to belong exclusively to epochs anterior to the origin of the existing fauna and flora. Of this nature are those faults and violent local dislocations of the rocks, and those sharp bendings and foldings of the strata, which we so often behold in mountain chains, and sometimes in low countries also, especially where the rock-formations are of ancient date.
POST-GLACIAL DISLOCATIONS AND FOLDINGS OF CRETACEOUS AND DRIFT STRATA IN THE ISLAND OF MOEN, DENMARK.
A striking illustration of such convulsions of Pleistocene date may be seen in the Danish island of Moen, which is situated about 50 miles south of Copenhagen. The island is about 60 miles in circumference, and consists of white Chalk, several hundred feet thick, overlaid by boulder clay and sand, or glacial drift which is made up of several subdivisions, some unstratified and others stratified, the whole having a mean thickness of 60 feet, but sometimes attaining nearly twice that thickness. In one of the oldest members of the formation fossil marine shells of existing species have been found.