THE- HISTORY OF LIFE 19 ( J 



The Cretaceous formations are found in Britain, 

 France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, 

 India, North America, and Australia. 



And thus ends the second book of this wonderful 

 Stone Bible. We now enter the 



THIRD BOOK OF THE STONE BIBLE. 



Here we find in certain parts a great gap in the 

 formations ; so marked is this hiatus that it is often 

 regarded as one of the greatest breaks in the geological 

 history of our globe. The development of the present 

 distribution of land and sea took place during this 

 period. Some of the most colossal disturbances of the 

 terrestrial crust, of which any record remains, took 

 place during the deposit of the strata of the Tertiary 

 epoch. There is abundant evidence of volcanic activity. 

 There are remarkable evidences of great changes in 

 climate. Judging from the terrestrial vegetation pre- 

 served in the strata, we may infer that in England the 

 climate of the oldest Tertiary period was of a temperate 

 character, and afterwards the climate became tropical, 

 even to the centre of Europe and North America. Then 

 the climate became temperate ; growing still colder, 

 the climate passed eventually into a phase of extreme 

 cold, when snow and ice extended far south into 

 Europe and North America. Geologists are still en- 

 tirely at variance as to the cause of all these alterations 

 of climate. Animals and plants in Tertiary times 

 are remarkably varied. The lower forms of plant life 

 diminish in importance, and the hard-wood trees and 

 the evergreens of to-day now succeed them, not by a 

 sudden introduction, for we have seen some of these 

 trees appear in Cretaceous times. 



