CHAP, in.] NO GLACIAL PERIOD IN MEIOCENE AGE. 65 



No Evidence of a Glacial Period in the Meiocene Age. 



It is believed by some authorities 1 that during the 

 long ages of the Meiocene period there was a glacial 

 climate in Europe, " as severe as, if not more excessive 

 than, the intensest severity of climate experienced during 

 the last glacial epoch;" or, in other words, that there was 

 as great a lowering of the temperature as that by which 

 great tracts of land were covered with ice and snow in 

 the Pleistocene age. This conclusion is founded upon 

 the discovery of angular blocks of stone in the upper 

 Meiocene strata of the Superga Hill, near Turin, which 

 have been conveyed some twenty miles away from 

 the Alpine localities in which similar rocks are seen in 

 situ. They are angular and indistinguishable from the 

 erratic blocks of the district, and are believed by Sir 

 Charles Lyell and Professor Gastaldi to have been trans- 

 ported to their present positions by ice. 2 It seems to me 

 that these blocks do not prove a severe climate in any 

 place except where the ice in question has been pro- 

 duced, which may have been on the tops of lofty 

 mountains, like those of the Andes, which send glaciers 

 down to the sea in Eyre Sound, Patagonia, in the lati- 

 tude of Paris. They tell us no more of the Meiocene 

 climate of Europe than the glaciers at present in New 

 Zealand 3 tell us of a climate which is sufficiently mild to 

 allow of the growth of tree ferns and areka palms. It is 

 impossible that a great climatal change could have taken 

 place in the Meiocene age affecting Europe generally, 

 without leaving its mark in the flora and in the fauna. 



1 See Croll, Climate and Time, pp. 306, 357. 



2 Lyell, Principles, i. p. 206, 10th edit. 



3 Lyell, Principles,!. 211. 



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