Note 348 — Chapter IX

After the second interglacial period the “Great Baltic Glacier” still covered the Scandinavian peninsula, with the exception of its southern part (Gothland), extended over the emerged bottom of the Baltic, over nearly the whole of Finland, and spreading round Gothland invaded the east coast of Denmark and the littoral of Germany to the east of Jutland. After the retreat of this glacier and a series of changes in the surface of the ground (a sinking which brought the Baltic into communication with the North Sea by means of the Strait of Svealand, followed by the upheaval which cut off that communication and made of the Baltic the Ancylus Lake of the geologists), the climate became milder in these parts, and the trees of Central Europe, first the pines, then the oaks and birches, penetrated into Denmark and Gothland, while in the north of Sweden there were two other new glacier movements. (Gerard de Geer, Om Skandinavens Geografiska Utveckling, Stockholm, 1897; G. Andersson, Geschichte Végétat. Schwed., Leipzig, 1896.)