A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



March or April of the earth's history, when 

 the annual rainfall appears to have been 

 vastly greater than at present, and when 

 the watercourses were consequently vastly 

 larger and fuller. In pleistocene days the 

 earth's climate was evidently much damper 

 than at present. It was the rainiest of 

 March weather. On no other theory can 

 we account for the enormous erosion of the 

 earth's surface, and the plowing of the great 

 valleys. Professor Newberry finds abundant 

 evidence that the Hudson was, in former 

 times, a much larger river than now. Pro- 

 fessor Zittel reaches the same conclusion 

 concerning the Nile, and Humboldt was im- 

 pressed with the same fact while examin- 

 ing the Orinoco and the tributaries of the 

 Amazon. All these rivers appear to be 

 but mere fractions of their former selves. 

 The same is true of all the great lakes. If 

 not Noah's flood, then evidently some other 

 very wet spell, of which this is a tradition, 

 lies far behind us. Something like the 

 drought of summer is beginning upon the 

 earth ; the great floods have dried up ; the 

 rivers are slowly shrinking ; the water is 

 penetrating farther and farther into the 

 64 



