48 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THli I'KIMEVAL WOULD. 



niivia, all the [)laiiis and valleys of Northern Europe, 

 with a diluvial deposit. As tlie districts where this 

 vast mountainous elevation took place, and the seas 

 surrounding them, were partially frozen and clothed 

 ill ice, owing to tlieir elevation and neighbourhood to 

 the pole, the flood which devastated them swept along 

 with it enormous ma.'-ses of ice. The shock [irodiiced 

 by their collision would serve to increase the extent 

 and intensity of the ravages occasioned by this awful 

 convulsion." 



The second European deluge originated, it is sup- 

 posed, in the formation and u|ilieaval of the Alps, 

 tilling with ruin and wreck the great valleys uf France, 

 Germany, and Italy, which radiate from tbosu huge 

 mountain masses as from a central point. 



To dwell on these events woidd carry us too far 

 from the immediate ])urpose of the present work. 

 They belong to the province of the geologist, rather 

 than to that of the naturalist. Some notice of the 

 changes undergone by the priuieval world was, indeed, 

 iuili.-.|ieii.sable, to eN|ilaiu to the reader the changes 

 which took place at dilierent epochs in the primeval 

 launa; but we must now draw to a conclusion our 

 brief and desLiltory observations. 



We lind, thus, that in the last seine of this strange, 

 eventful history — the Glacial period — ''the entire range 

 of animated nature, the evolution of animals, was then 

 siiiMeuly arrested in that part of our hemisphere over 

 which those gigantic convulsions spread ; followed by 

 the brief but sudden submersion of entire continents. 

 Orgaiuc life had scarcely recovered from this awful 

 blow, before it was assailed by a second and, perhaps, 

 a severer. All Noilhern and Central Europe — all the 

 wide region eiteudiu" bum Scandinavia to the Medi- 



terranean and the Danube — were suddenly visited by 

 a period of excessive cold ; were seized within the 

 numbing grasp of an arctic atmosphere. The plains 

 of Europe, ornamented only a short time before by the 

 luxuriant vegetation of a tropical climate — the boundless 

 pastures where herds of elephants, the nimble horse, 

 the robust hippopotamus, and the great carnivorous 

 animals roamed, and made war against each other — were 

 covered all at once with a shroud of ice and snow." 



The phenomenon is variously explained, but the fact 

 is, human knowledge is unable to propose any satis- 

 factory explanation. It was probably the result of a 

 combination of causes, among which a sudden disturb- 

 ance of the parallelism of the axis of rotation may have 

 occupied a foremost rank. All we know is — and this 

 the earth itself sulBciently demonstrates — that such a 

 ]ihcnomeuon actually took place, and in many a 

 European valley we can trace the progress of the vast 

 masses of ice and the huge glaciers which it originated 

 and set in motion. We can observe how they smoothed, 

 and polished, and striated the rocks over which they 

 passed. Enormous boulders, or erratic blocks, lying 

 at great distances from their ancient positions, are 

 mute but eloquent memorials of the Glacial period — 

 the Age of Ice. llow long it lasted we cannot even 

 guess, but after a while — after a lapse of years which 

 to man might seem an eternity, but to the Creator 

 was only as a moment — the earth resumed its normal 

 temperature, the grasses sprang afresh over plain and 

 vallej', the trees once more waved in imnierous forests, 

 animal life again appeared on the surface of the globe, 

 and — 



UOD' CltEATED MAN. 



