THE NEOZOIC AGES. 265 



have sat under our vine and fig-tree equally in Green- 

 land and Spitzbergen and in those more southern 

 climes to which this privilege is now restricted. We 

 might have enjoyed a great variety of rich and nutri- 

 tive fruits, and, if sufficiently muscular, and able to 

 cope with the gigantic mammals of the period, we 

 might have engaged in either the life of the hunter or 

 that of the agriculturist under advantages which we 

 do not now possess. On the whole, the Miocene 

 presents to us in these respects the perfection of the 

 Neozoic time, and its culmination in so far as the 

 nobler forms of brute animals and of plants are con- 

 cerned. Had men existed in those days, however, 

 they should have been, in order to suit the conditions 

 surrounding them, a race of giants ; and they would 

 probably have felt the want of many of those more 

 modern species belonging to the flora and fauna of 

 Europe and Western Asia on which man has so much 

 depended for his civilization. Some reasons have 

 been adduced for the belief that in the Miocene and 

 Eocene there were intervals of cold climate ; but the 

 evidence of this may be merely local and exceptional, 

 and does not interfere with the broad characteristics of 

 the age as sketched above. 



The warm climate and rich vegetation of the 

 Miocene extended far into the Pliocene, with charac- 

 ters very similar to those already stated; but as the 

 Pliocene age went on, cold and frost settled down 

 upon the Northern Hemisphere, and a remarkable 

 change took place in its vegetable productions. For 



