THE HUGE GLACIERS OF THE PAST 113 



extreme, the effective amount of heat received from the 

 sun in these regions of the earth. The peculiar scratch- 

 ing, polishing, and erosion of rocks, the existence of 

 moraines, and other evidence, prove that enormous 

 glaciers covered the north of Europe, that England and 

 Scotland were in large part covered by a great ice-sheet 

 or glacier, and that the great valleys of Switzerland such 

 as the Rhone Valley and the basin of the Lake of 

 Geneva, were filled by enormous glaciers, which helped 

 to mould and deepen the valleys. The present glaciers 

 are truly the remnants or rootlets of those enormous 

 masses of the glacial epoch. On such of the land 

 surface as was not then covered by ice, existed the hairy 

 elephant or Siberian mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, 

 wild cattle, lions, bears, hyenas, and other animals now 

 extinct in this part of the world. Man had made his 

 appearance, hunted these animals, and lived in caves. 

 His weapons and carvings and their bones tell us the 

 story in no uncertain terms. 



The biggest Swiss glaciers of to-day, compared to the 

 great glacier of the Rhone Valley, of which they are but 

 the highest tributaries, still surviving unmelted among 

 the mountain-tops, are in size as a mountain freshet is 

 to the great stream of Loch Lomond, or as the Serpen- 

 tine in Hyde Park to the neighbouring Thames. Vast 

 as was the great glacier of the Rhone Valley, and 

 immense as has been the work done by water and ice in 

 carving the great highway in the mountain-mass of 

 Switzerland, it has all been effected since the date of the 

 formation on the sea-bottom and the subsequent elevation 

 of the strata which we call " the chalk " a deposit 

 which comes not very far down in the series of strata of 

 the earth's crust. Only 3,000ft. of deposit exist above 

 it, whilst below it are more than 60,000ft. of water- 

 deposited, or "sedimentary" rocks. The huge Alps 

 have risen since the date of the "chalk, 11 for we find 

 strata containing marine shells of the Tertiary period at 



