272 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



as if various factors making for change obtain an increased effect from time 

 to time. This also is shown by the formation of the moraines which marked 

 the stages of ice-retreat in prehistoric times. 



Steenstrup shows that within the last 6,000 years the climate in Denmark 

 has favoured the pine, the oak, and the beech in turn. Briickner and various 

 meteorologists have been at pains to show that there has been no change of 

 climate for 2,000 years. Their statements will be seen to be fairly justified 

 by consideration of de Horsey's curve, which has scarcely altered for 2,000 

 years, but has altered sufficiently in 6,000 years to be favourable to these 

 three kinds of vegetation in turn. A recent pronouncement on our present 

 mild winter by an eminent meteorologist is based on the assumption that the 

 circulation of winds and waves are the main causes. These do affect the 

 weather, but the world's climate is undoubtedly dominated by its degree of 

 tilt to its orbit, though even this has been disputed by individuals, who 

 ought to know better. In the April number of Science Progress 1920, 

 I have already recounted the various evidences of a recent glaciation from 

 all parts of the world, though I omitted to add the evidence from Scotland 

 and Norway, and the full evidence of the very striking corroboration supplied 

 by the submerged forests. If this last evidence stood alone, it should 

 compel attention. It is sufficient here to say that they represent the effect 

 of a rise of sea-level caused by an enormous melting of the ice, in the spring, 

 as it were, of the cycle, which was returned to the sea in repayment of the 

 over-draft accumulated at the poles during 15,000 years of cold. 



All these facts cannot, without reproach, continue to be ignored by science. 

 Indeed, without regarding Drayson's discovery at all, there is quite sufficient 

 evidence on which to postulate a recent glaciation, and to show that we have 

 now entered a " genial period," reducing the extent of the polar ice, and 

 heralding, in consequence, an amelioration in the severity of our winters, by 

 slow but certain degrees, for very many years to come. 



Geologists are quite unprepared with any solid opinion wherewith to 

 confront the evidences all over the world which I have before summarised 

 in their entirety for the first time, and which ought to convince the most 

 resolute sceptic that there has been a glaciation geologically recently, and 

 therefore only to be explained by some compelling cosmical cause, exerting 

 its effects slowly but surely through the ages, causing recurrent glaciations 

 with periods long enough to completely alter the fauna and flora of certain 

 latitudes over and over again. 



In the science of anthropology it is established that in the study of many 

 flint implement cultures there is geological evidence to show that the period in 

 question terminated in cold conditions supervening after a period of temperate 

 climate. Thus, to quote from my previous work. The Change in the Climate 

 and its Cause ^ : " In reviewing the history of mankind, one sees in the 

 evidence of caves and ' drift,' and accompanying fossil deposits of the tem- 

 perate zone, an alternating pageant, in the same area, of sub-tropical and 

 cold conditions ; of man and the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros in close 

 relationship, followed by the horse and early type of ox ; then, perhaps, a 

 period of reindeer and Arctic animals succeeded by a more temperate fauna ; 

 with evidence, here and there in caves, of a sterile deposit, when the same 

 area was for long untrodden by man or beast of any kind. The alterations 

 of obliquity are alone responsible for these changing views, and it is only 

 through Drayson that we can obtain an understanding of the cause of these 

 periods and a measure of their duration." 



In view of such researches, it seems useless to contend that there has been 

 only one glaciation ; but it is a contention that has been made by more than 

 one geologist of note, and illustrates the chaos of present opinions. It is the 



* E. Marlborough & Co. 



