194. ZT. H. D. La Touche—Relics of Ice Age in India. 
prominent in proportion to the accumulation of ice that took place in 
any given region. Thus they are clearly visible in all the countries 
surrounding the Pole, especially so in North America, the British Isles, 
Scandinavia, and Siberia, where there has been found conclusive 
evidence to show that, during the period of maximum glaciation, 
a huge ice-cap buried a very large part of those countries, and in 
England extended as far south as the Thames Valley. This evidence 
is rendered more conclusive by the fact that, strictly speaking, the 
last Glacial Period has not yet come to an end, but that its peculiar 
characters still-persist within the Arctic Circle, and we are therefore 
able to follow the indications of its passage step by step, from the 
edge of the great ice-sheet that even now covers the greater part of 
Greenland and the extreme north of the American continent, south- 
wards across the plains of Canada or the hills of Scotland, until we 
come upon indubitable signs of what was once the outer edge of the 
larger ice-sheet of the past. oe. 
But the Arctic Circle is not the only region that affords evidence of 
the persistence into our present humdrum times of the last Glacial 
Period. Every range of mountains that raises its crest to a sufficient 
elevation above the sea-level, provided that there is also a sufficient 
precipitation of moisture, is, as there is no need for me to point out to 
those of you who have seen the Himalaya, covered with so-called 
permanent snow and ice, the lower limit of which rises gradually 
from the sea-level as we recede from the Pole. And in each of these 
ranges there is equally indubitable evidence, indications of which may 
be followed down from the still ice-bound crests, through the valleys, 
of an extension of the ice and snow to much lower altitudes within 
quite recent times, considered from a geological point of view; so 
recent that it is quite certain that man, the most highly developed 
being on the earth, had already appeared and attained to some degree 
of culture while that period of intense cold was in progress. 
It is not my intention to enter now into a discussion of the causes 
of the Glacial Period, or of the phenomena that marked its passage, 
except in so far as the latter affect this country. As Sir Archibald 
Geikie says in his Text Book of Geology,’ ‘‘No section of geological 
history now possesses a more voluminous literature than the Glacial 
Period,’’ and to give you even the slightest idea of the theories that 
have been put forward to account for it would lead me far beyond the 
limits allowable for a single lecture. Even now geologists and other 
scientific men are not in agreement as to the true cause of this wide- 
spread refrigeration of climate, and I must only ask you to accept the 
assertion that it did take place, though I may say that in case you are 
not disposed to do so, and prefer to attribute the phenomena I am 
about to describe to a general inundation, such as Noah’s flood, or 
some similar catastrophe called by another name, you will find your- 
selves in very good company, even in scientific circles. 
In bringing forward evidence which, in my opinion, shows that 
relics of this Glacial Period are still to be found in the plains of India, 
it will perhaps be best to follow the same line of inquiry that 
1 4thed., vol. op. 1301, note. 
