100 Henry H. Hoicorth — Elevation of Eadern Asia. 



chain of any erratic blocks so far as his observations went [op. at. 

 pp. 396-7). In 1871 another special work on the geology of the 

 Altai was published at Leipzig by the famous geologist Bernhard 

 von Cotta. Inter alia, he remarks on the complete absence in the 

 Altai of any traces of a Glacial age, or of such evidences of an Ice 

 age as exist in Western Europe. He says that General von Helraersen 

 had failed to find any ti-aces of erratic blocks of rounded rocks or of 

 polished surfaces ; while he himself, in spite of an eager search, had 

 "not been able to find the slightest evidence of anything of the kind 

 either in the subordinate ranges and hills or the deeper valleys, 

 although the mountains there are from seven to eleven thousand feet 

 liigh, and at present a few small glaciers are to be found in the 

 south-eastern part of the range; and," he adds, "those who would 

 explain the absence of old glacial action in the Urals from the fact 

 of their comparatively low altitude cannot use the same argument 

 here." In another place Von Cotta remarks again on the fact that 

 the Altai range offers no traces of a former Glacial period or of an 

 Ice age (vide op. cit. pp. 65 and 107). 



The two ranges of the Urals and the Altai therefore share in this 

 common absence of traces of a so-called Glacial age, an absence 

 which is also marked, as Humboldt long ago pointed out, in the 

 plains which separate the two ranges. All this is assuredly very 

 remarkable. That a vast congeries of mountains should have existed 

 in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere at the time when 

 the Alps and the Dovrefelds were shedding their great trains of 

 erratics far and wide and were covered with vast glaciers, and yet 

 that there should be no traces of old glacier action among them, 

 is explainable to myself by no other hypothesis than their non- 

 existence at the time. As in the case of the Urals, to which I 

 devoted the previous paper, the absence of traces of ice action 

 is the best evidence that the Altai range did not exist when ice 

 action was so developed on nearly every secondary mountain chain 

 in the north temperate zone. 



Again, it is a remarkable fact that among the animal remains 

 found in the Altai caverns the Hygena should occur. The Hyaena 

 is, I believe, very rarely if ever found in the caverns on the flanks 

 of the Alps or in those of the higher grounds of Germany, and was 

 a frequenter of the warmer plains. That it should occur in the 

 caverns of the Altai points again to that area having had a different 

 contour to the present one. Altogether, it seems to me that in 

 regard to the Altai range, such evidence as we have is completely 

 consistent with the a priori view that these mountains did not exist 

 during the Mammoth age. 



If we turn from the Altai range to the mighty plateau which 

 forms the great mass of Central Asia, and is buttressed on the south 

 by the Himalayas, on the north by the Thian Shan range, on the 

 west by the Pamir and the Hindu Kush, and on the east by the 

 mountains of Corea, we have to deal with an area which has only 

 been visited and traversed at a few points. The testimony of 

 travellers, however, seems to be unanimous, whether they approach 



