15 



tures of the climatic zones now belting the earth have 

 risen since that Age, and that this rise is yet in pro- 

 gress. 



THE 

 WIDESPREAD TEMPERATE CONDITION OF THE TERTIARY. 



Throughout the whole of the northern hemisphere 

 which has been reached by geologists, fossil fauna and 

 flora have been found which establish the fact that dur- 

 ing the tertiary warm temperate conditions prevailed. 

 During the middle tertiary, palms flourished well within 

 the Arctic Zone.* Buried in bogs and mingled with 

 gravel and boulders the bones of gigantic mammals are 

 found in tropical Brazil. f These gigantic mammals and 

 other types of life correspond with those found in 

 Alaska, or in Patagonia; tertiary life in Siberia records 

 the same temperatures as that on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, so that from nearly one polar circle to 

 the other, we are called upon to note, not only a once 

 greater glacial extension, but also a preceding temperate 

 age. The evidence of the existence of the one is no less 

 conclusive than that of the existence of the other. 

 Evidence of the temperate age everywhere precedes the 

 evidence of the Ice Age. In some regions the Ice Age 

 yet exists, but beneath the ice is found evidence which 

 establishes the prior existence of milder climates. J 



*Heer. Miocene Flora of North Greenland. Brit. Ass'n. Rept., 1886. 



Brit. Ass'n. Rept. 1870, p. 88. 



tBranner. The Journal of Geology, Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 767. The peculiar 

 distribution of boulders and gravel is ascribed by Dr. Branner to wave 

 action, and to a reversion of the order of upheavals and depressions ap- 

 pealed to by others to account for the Ice Age. The distribution of drift, 

 as described by Dr. B., is that which Sir H. H. Howarth considers neces- 

 sary to prove the glaciation of the Amazon Valley. The Glacial Night- 

 mare and The Flood, Vol. II, p. 495. London, 1893. 



tAm. Geologist, Vol. XX, pp. 343-4. 



