156 
ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 
cene deposits. On the other hand, we have noted that pec¬ 
caries lived in the United States during the Pleistocene and 
the preceding .geological periods. They were not exterminated 
by the severity of the climate. Representatives of the peccary 
family not only survived the Glacial Epoch, they even showed 
their indifference to it hy invading the area which had only 
just been forsaken hy the supposed Wisconsin glacier, for 
their remains, as Dr. Hay tells us, were found in deposits 
overlying the Wisconsin drift at three different localities. 
In the single cave in which the reindeer occurred its re¬ 
mains were mingled with those of a species of peccary 
(Tayassus tetragonus) very closely allied to that still living 
in the Southern States and in South America. Nor was the 
Glacial Epoch any more trying to the great ground sloth,, 
Megalonyx, for it also survived it and invaded the area covered 
hy the drift. The remains of a species of that giant edentate 
were found some years ago, according to Dr. Hay, in an old 
filled-up pond, just within the alleged outermost moraine of 
the Wisconsin glacier near Millersburg in Ohio. My .Own 
views as to the nature of the climate prevailing during the 
Pleistocene Period, and particularly during that phase of it 
known as the “ Glacial Epoch ” or Ice Age, are derived from 
a careful scrutiny of the living and extinct fauna and flora. 
This study of the animals and plants does not reveal to me 
that the Pleistocene Period was a period of extreme cold. 
On the contrary, as I remarked before, the climate seems to 
have been milder in a large portion of the northern 
hemisphere than it is at present. An apparent increase of 
temperature after the pa-ssing away of the “ Ice Age ” is 
supposed to be indicated by the appearance of forms of animal 
and plant life requiring a higher temperature than is com¬ 
patible with the arctic condition believed to have prevailed 
during the height of the Glacial Epoch. It is really due, I 
think, to that perfectly natural re-occupation of tracts of 
country on which both plants and animals had been destroyed. 
The destructive agent, in my opinion, was not ice but water. 
Glaciers no doubt existed on all the higher mountains near 
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They owed their presence, 
however, not to cold, but principally, as I mentioned before, 
to the higher temperature of the eastern and western oceans. 
