president's address. <)33 



the equatorial regions must have been intolerably hot at a 

 period when the poles enjoyed quite a moderate climate, 

 or even one comparable with present-day tropical conditions. It 

 would thus come about that the polar regions would be the tirst 

 portion of the earth's surface to become inhabitable to li\ing 

 organisms, and so in the seas around a polar continent may have 

 originated the life now common to the whole world. The fossil 

 remains, however, which are found in the polar rej^ions, are not 

 those of such organisms as investigation elsewhere has shown to 

 have existed at early geological periods, while in the Arctic 

 region, at any rate, remains of trees of modern age have V)een 

 found apparently in situ. 



The subject is one of great difficulty and obscurity, but «o 

 far as I understand the evidence, the most probable cause 

 of a material change, in the rigour of the polar climate is 

 alteration in the land level. Tn different tropical and sub- 

 tropical regions of the earth there is unmistakable evidence of 

 glacial action, where, 1 take it, it is inadmissible to suppose 

 that under existing conditions of land level the climate can ever 

 have been frigid. We seem forced, then, to accept the 

 hypothesis that, when glaciation occurred, the land surfaces 

 involved were at a much greater elevation than now, and, in 

 fact, constituted true alpine areas. 



Let us for a moment apply this principle to the polar regions. 

 Were the entire polar areas free from land, and covered by open 

 sea having full communication with the tropical oceans, the 

 result would be a flow of warm water from the tropics across the 

 poles, and a profound change in the prevailing temperature, a 

 modification much greater indeed than that produced in Northern 

 Europe by the influence of the Gulf Stream. Where there is 

 no land neither ice nor snow can accumulate, and given limited 

 areas of land forming islands studding the polar seas, the climate 

 on these would, during the summer, be quite comparable with 

 that of temperate regions, while the winter would be much less 

 rigorous than under existing conditions. The blanketing effect 

 of the dense clouds which would be continually hanging over the 



