There would thus be a natural process of levelling as
long as the land stood out high above the water-line, but it
seems probable that there was also a real sinking of the crust.
Such subsidences have been known within historic times.
By the end of the Triassic--a period of at least two million
years--the sea had reconquered a vast proportion of the territory
wrested from it in the Permian revolution. Most of Europe, west
of a line drawn from the tip of Norway to the Black Sea, was
under water--generally open sea in the south and centre, and
inland seas or lagoons in the west. The invasion of the sea
continued, and reached its climax, in the Jurassic period. The
greater part of Europe was converted into an archipelago. A small
continent stood out in the Baltic region. Large areas remained
above the sea-level in Austria, Germany, and France. Ireland,
Wales, and much of Scotland were intact, and it is probable that
a land bridge still connected the west of Europe with the east of
America. Europe generally was a large cluster of islands and
ridges, of various sizes, in a semi-tropical sea. Southern Asia
was similarly revelled, and it is probable that the seas
stretched, with little interruption, from the west of Europe to
the Pacific.
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