162 Sir H. Hoicorth — The Mammoth Age and the Glaciers. 



by forests and steppes, where abundant vegetable and animal life 

 flourished, and that the era of Great Glaciers in Europe and North 

 America corresponded to the current condition of things in New- 

 Zealand, where Great Glaciers exist alongside of thickets of 

 luxuriant trees, amidst which the Apteryx and its companions 

 thrive. 



In order to illustrate this position we must divide the area 

 over which the Mammoth and the Drift occur into three zones : 



(1) that in which Drift occurs, but not the Pleistocene beasts; 



(2) that in which the Pleistocene beasts occur, but not the Drift; 

 and (3) that in which they occur together. 



In regard to the first of these zones or provinces, it is remarkable 

 that in Scandinavia, Finland and the Alpine country, and in the 

 correspondingly glaciated districts of America, there should be 

 a virtual absence of all traces of the Pleistocene fauna, not merely 

 of the Mammoth and the Rhinoceros but of traces of such Arctic 

 animals as the Musk Sheep, the Reindeer and the Ice Fox. These 

 last creatures occur with the Mammoth and the Rhinoceros in 

 France, Central Germany and Britain, but are not found in the 

 Alps, in Scandinavia, or the Highlands of Scotland, although now 

 flourishing in the highest latitudes. They seem to have abandoned 

 those areas for others where food and other conditions made life 

 supportable. Not only so, but we do not find that in the areas where 

 the Pleistocene beasts occur that they are assorted according to 

 climates, but they occur together at Zurich and on the borders of 

 the Alps and in Scotland just as much as in Southern France. 

 All this surely points to the sharp separation in locality, but not in 

 time, of the Pleistocene fauna of the plains from the barren uplands.. 

 This distribution of the fauna of the Pleistocene age seems to me 

 to afford strong evidence that the Great Glaciers of the high lands 

 were contemporary with the existence of the Pleistocene fauna 

 elsewhere. 



If we turn from these districts to those where the Mammoth and 

 its companions have occurred, but where there is no Drift, we shall 

 be constrained to the same conclusion. 



It is a remarkable fact that if we limit ourselves to the plains 

 of Northern Siberia, excepting a fringe of land bordering on the 

 Arctic Ocean which has recently risen from the sea and contains 

 deposits of very recent marine shells, there is no evidence that 

 a period of severe cold other than that now existing has marked 

 the climate of Siberia since the Mammoth was extinguished. The 

 existence of carcases in their flesh, and of very recent-looking 

 Molluscs and tree trunks in the surface-beds of Siberia, all point to 

 the age they represent having been the last one ; and that the only 

 glacial conditions which have existed in Siberia are those now 

 current there, the climate having become more and more severe 

 since the Mammoth age. This means, if evidence is to go for 

 anything, that the Mammoth age in Siberia and North-Eastern 

 Europe, which was its last epoch, was contemporary with the 

 Great Glaciers elsewhere. 



