In those ages--while the valleys of the Cam, the Ouse, the Nene, the
Welland, the Glen, and the Witham were sawing themselves out by no
violent convulsions, but simply, as I believe, by the same slow
action of rain and rivers by which they are sawing backward into the
land even now--I 'seem to see' a time when the Straits of Dover did
not exist--a time when a great part of the German Ocean was dry land.
Through it, into a great estuary between North Britain and Norway,
flowed together all the rivers of north-eastern Europe--Elbe, Weser,
Rhine, Scheldt, Seine, Thames, and all the rivers of east England, as
far north as the Humber.
And if a reason be required for so daring a theory--first started, if
I recollect right, by the late lamented Edward Forbes--a sufficient
one may be found in one look over a bridge, in any river of the East
of England. There we see various species of Cyprinidae, 'rough' or
'white' fish--roach, dace, chub, bream, and so forth, and with them
their natural attendant and devourer, the pike.
Now these fish belong almost exclusively to the same system of
rivers--those of north-east Europe.
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