SOLUTION OF THE CLIMATE PROBLEM RAMSAY 247 



Meanwhile, as the weight of the ice caps diminished to correspond 

 to the depression of the ice-loaded area (i. e., as the average thick- 

 ness of the ice was about three times the amount of the depression), 

 the crustal sinking had reached its maximum and reversed in up- 

 heaval. But the dissolution of the ice, once begun, continued be- 

 cause the steady addition of water to the sea raised the snoAv line. 

 In the race between the upheaval and the rising of the sea level, the 

 latter won. When delivered from ice, the just glaciated regions 

 were still deeply submerged.^ ^'^ Further, the snow line may have 

 risen more than the sea level in consequence of the amelioration of 

 the climate by the decrease of the glaciation. The melting, the 

 rising of the snow line, and the general improvement of the climate 

 proceeded rather in an accelerated degree, on analogy with the case 

 in late-glacial time in Fenno-Scandia investigated by De Geer ^^ and 

 Sauramo.^^ Finally an interglacial stage with restricted glaciation 

 and genial climate appeared. 



But the loftier portions of the regions were gradually raised anew 

 above the snow line and glaciated. All the consequences of this 

 pointed out in the foregoing pages led to a new general ice age, again 

 followed by an interglacial stage, and so on. 



Above, the isostatic rise of the sea floor by the abstraction of water 

 from the ocean and the subsidence of ice-covered land is omitted, as 

 also the reverse events. If considered, they should accent the sup- 

 posed effect of crustal movements on growth and decline of the ice 

 caps. 



The cause of these oscillations (fig. 1) between severer and milder 

 miothermic climate is, then, that the land movements due to the 

 increasing and decreasing of the ice caps have their maxima and 

 minima at other points of time than the variations of the ice caps 

 and of the sea level (snow line). In the course of time the ampli- 

 tudes of the successive oscillations must decrease until a balance in 

 the miothermic climate is attained: moderate glaciation with iso- 

 static equilibrium between depression and ice load, cessation of 

 upheaval or submergence of the formerly glaciated lands. We are 

 not yet at that point. I think, with Nansen,^^ that the last post- 

 glacial transgression of the sea in Fenno-Scandia indicates the 

 maximum of dissolution of the ice caps and the highest position of 



"» Wilhelm Ramsay : " On Relations Between Crustal Movements and Variations of 

 Sea-level During the Late Quaternary Time," Bulletin de la Commission G^ologique 

 de Finlande, No. 66, Helsingfors, 1924. 



" Gerard De Geer, "A Geochronology of the Last 12,000 Years " : Compte rendu du 

 XI Congr^s Geologique International, Stockholm, 1910, pp. 241-253. "A Thermographl- 

 cal Record of the Late Quaternary Climate " : Die Veranderungen des Elimas seit dem 

 Maximum der letzten Eiszcit (Congrfes G6ol. Intern., 1910), Stockholm, 1910, pp. 303-310. 



" Matti Sauramo, " Studies on the Quaternary Varve Sediments In Southern Fin- 

 land " : Bulletin de la Commission Geologique de Finlande, No. 60, Helsingfors, 1923. 



" Loc. cit., pp. 286-287. 



