THE ICE AGE 



But the whole world felt its effects ; even in tropical 

 regions ice and glaciers occurred on mountains where 

 they did not exist before and do not exist now, and on 

 mountains which now have glaciers the ice descended to 

 levels 5000 feet below the point where it now stops. The 

 southern hemisphere was affected as well as the northern, 

 but to a much less degree. In Patagonia and New 

 Zealand glaciers crept down from the mountains and 

 spread out on the plains. Glaciers formed on the moun- 

 tainous tracts of Tasmania and Australia where none 

 exist now. Most of the higher mountains of the southern 

 hemisphere bore glaciers. The Antarctic regions were pre- 

 sumably buried beneath ice and snow as they are at 

 present, but of that we are not certain. 



In Asia ice-fields far greater than those existing to-day 

 affected the higher mountains, and from the Lebanon to 

 the Caucasus and from the Himalayas to Siberia and China 

 traces of glaciers are found where they are not to be seen 

 now. Yet on the plateaux and lowlands of Asia ice-sheets 

 were far less extensive than in Europe and in North 

 America. 



In Europe there were large glaciers in the southern 

 mountains and extensive ice - sheets on the southern 

 plains. Radiating from the Scandinavian highlands a 

 succession of great ice-sheets crept forth on the lowlands 

 of Russia, Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, 

 and crossing the shallow basin of the North Sea touched 

 the shores of Great Britain, where they were met by ice 

 radiating from the mountains of these isles. 



From the Alps gigantic glaciers descended to the low- 



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