from the northern plains, and down from the 

 mountainsides to form vast hordes of fugitives 

 hastening to southern plains. 



This hegira continuing as the sheet of ice grew 

 and plowed its glacier beds slowly down to median 

 latitudes of Europe and Asia, the entire members 

 of many families were overtaken on the northern 

 side of the mountain ranges and frozen out; 

 others, passing between the ends of the ranges, 

 reached the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and 

 the Indian Ocean, and were then and there 

 destroyed, a few only escaping by the narrow, 

 devious Isthmus of Suez into Africa, while others 

 huddled upon the three peninsulas of Arabia, 

 Hindustan, and Malacca. 



On the Western Continent a great portion of the 

 plants in their flight came down unobstructed, to 

 the Gulf of Mexico, to be caught and frozen there, 

 a few eastern families escaped on the peninsula of 

 Florida, while the greater part of the western 

 plants ran down along the plateau of Mexico into 

 Central America, and perhaps finally crossed on 

 the Isthmus of Darien into South America. 



GREATER DESTRUCTION BY HEAT. 



Following the Glacial came a Thermal Age, with 

 contrary effects, yet with more destructive results. 

 The ice melts on the southern vefge of the ponder- 

 ous ice cover, allowing the plants to return, timidly 

 seeking the newly-emptied glacier beds. Soon 

 after, the flood- water sinking into the mountain- 

 sides, the brown earth, becoming vivified, invites 

 the grasses and flowers to new-made homes, while 



(8) 



