The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 333 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 333 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863.
and Sweden became dry land; a considerable tract was added to their northern extremity on the Arctic shore; while a broad band of Silurian deposits, lying now between Finland and Russia, enlarged that region.  The Silurian epoch has been referred by Elie de Beaumont to the system of upheaval called by him the system of Westmoreland and Hundsrueck,—­again merely in reference to the spots at which these upheavals were first studied, the centres, as it were, from which the investigations spread.  But in their geological significance they indicate all the oscillations and disturbances of the soil throughout the region over which the Silurian deposits have been traced in Europe.  The Devonian epoch added greatly to the outlines of the Belgian island.  To it belongs the region of the Ardennes, lying between France and Belgium, the Eifelgebirge, and a new disturbance of the Vosges, by which that region was also extended.  The island of Bretagne was greatly increased by the Devonian deposits, and Bohemia also gained in dimensions, while the central plateau of France remained much the same as before.  The changes of the Devonian epoch are traced by Elie de Beaumont to a system of upheavals called the Ballons of the Vosges and of Normandy,—­so called from the rounded, balloon-like domes characteristic of the mountains of that time.  To the Carboniferous epoch belong the mountain-systems of Forey, (to the west of Lyons,) of the North of England, and of the Netherlands.  These three systems of upheaval have also been traced by Elie de Beaumont; and in the depressions formed between their elevations we find the coal-basins of Central France, of England, and of Germany.  During all these epochs, in Europe as in America, every such dislocation of the surface was attended by a change in the animal creation.

If we take now a general view of the aspect of Europe at the close of the Carboniferous epoch, we shall see that the large island of Scandinavia is completed, while the islands of Bohemia and Belgium have approached each other by their gradual increase till they are divided only by a comparatively narrow channel.  The island of Belgium, that of Bretagne, and that of the central plateau of France, form together a triangle, of which the plateau is the lowest point, while Belgium and Bretagne form the other two corners.  Between the plateau and Belgium flows a channel, which we may call the Burgundian channel, since it covers old Burgundy; between the plateau and Bretagne is another channel, which from its position we may call the Bordeaux channel.  The space inclosed between these three masses of land is filled by open sea.  To trace the gradual closing of these channels and the filling up of the ocean by constantly increasing accumulations, as well as by upheavals, will be the object of the next article.

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THE MUSICIAN.

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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.