592 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



By the curve of obliquity furnished by the diagram one can 

 postulate from its rapid fall from 6000 to 5000 b.c. that the 

 temperate zones must have been under conditions of inunda- 

 tions, avalanches, and removal of landmarks on a stupendous 

 scale. The rapid melting of the ice originally drawn from the 

 ocean as water, and roughly represented by the bulge in the 

 curve, must have had an appreciable effect upon its level 

 when restored to it, and the sea would rise slowly along the 

 coasts. The submerged forests are an eloquent testimony to 

 this process, and the evidence that the course of events was in 

 accord with this assumption is exceedingly circumstantial. 1 



Again, 7,000 years ago is the date generally assigned to the 

 Lake Dwellings. Imagine the conditions of spring time in 

 the mountainous regions of extreme latitudes during this 

 rapid change : avalanches, which even now are dreaded, must 

 have rendered life in the valleys impossible. Could any 

 supposition fit in better with what is known of these 

 villages ? And what is more likely than that the world-wide 

 traditions of the Deluge had their foundation in the cataclysms 

 of this period ? The engineering skill shown in pile driving 

 must have been equal to making an efficient stockade were 

 wild beasts only to be feared and not the forces of nature. 



(4) A Former Simultaneous Glaciation at both Poles (con- 

 versely a decrease of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic at the 

 present time). — This is borne out by indications in North and 

 South America and elsewhere, which have convinced American 

 geoolgists that the Ice Age was synchronous at both poles. 



Mr. Ponting, in his lectures on the Antarctic Expedition, 

 states that the ice has receded thirty-six miles in forty years. 

 There has been an enormous decrease of ice in Alaska in the 

 same time. 2 There are signs in South Baffin Land of recent 

 ice-retreat, while similar reports come from Siberia. 



There is also the retirement of Swiss glaciers ; but over and 

 above all this it is found that a process of desiccation is going 

 on in parts of Central Asia, owing to a depletion of glacier 

 and ice-sheet feeders for the rivers flowing from the Himalaya 

 and Hindu Kush, which has given rise to some anxiety for the 

 future. In observations made on this subject by the Surveyor- 



1 See Submerged Forests, by Clement Reid. (Cambridge University Press.) 

 3 The Muir glacier in Alaska, which retreated some twenty miles in the last 

 century, has since 1886 actually retreated at the rate of one mile every three years, 



