1G6 Sir a. Hoicorth — The Mammoth Age and the Glaciers. 



and that they were exterminated everywhere, but in the warmest 

 corner, by the cold." In regard to the Southern Flora of Devon 

 and Cornwall the same writer says : " The precarious foothold of 

 many of the species, and the apparent dying out of some, are not 

 suggestive of species migrating northwards in response to a con- 

 tinually ameliorating climate." Lastly, Mr. Bulman quotes the 

 occurrence of the reeds of Naias marina in the Cromer Forest Bed. 

 The only British locality for this plant is Heckling Broad, Norfolk, 

 and, hitherto, the Forest bed is the only fossil locality. " It would 

 be," he says, " to say the least, a curious coincidence if it had 

 been exterminated by the ice and had then re-migrated from the 

 Continent to one spot in Norfolk only." The species is at present a 

 native of the temperate and tropical regions of the world (Natural 

 Science, pp. 261-266). 



Dr. Scharff has recently sent me some papers on Irish land and 

 fresh-water Molluscs, in which he takes the same view in regard 

 to Ireland, and it seems to me it is only by taking this view we can 

 explain the fauna and flora of the detached islands off the British coast. 



Mr. Soraervail thus describes the conditions which he supposed, and 

 what I suppose, prevailed in Scotland during the Glacial age. " All 

 the higher part of the country would appear to have been covered 

 with snow and ice to a considerable depth. The great valleys were 

 filled with glaciers which reached the sea. Large tracts of the country 

 were entirely free from ice and covered with the flora and tenanted by 

 the fauna already referred to, and doubtless by many more of whose 

 existence we have not as yet discovered any record. Over certain 

 tracts small lakes existed, formed by the melting of the terminal 

 portion of the glaciers further inland, while in and around those 

 lakes sufficient vegetation grew to form the layers of peat which we 

 sometimes find inclosed in the Boulder-clay " (Trans. Geol. Soc. of 

 Edinburgh, vol. iii. p. 95). 



In illustration of this position, I would quote what is actually 

 occurring in these Northern latitudes at this moment. 



Speaking of a glacier near Odde on the Hardanger Fiord, Mr. J. 

 M. Wilson says : " The steep slope of ice terminates in a ver}'^ small 

 moraine a yard or two wide .... masses of fresh turf, with flowers 

 still in bloom, are thrown up in this moraine as the inexorable 

 mass pushes on. It is now ploughing through the sweet pastures 

 belonging to a farm. Within a few yards of the glacier are to be 

 found wild roses and foxgloves, ladies' mantles and holly fern, and 

 a score of meadow flowers, with ripe raspberries and strawberries 

 and blackberries. This is a new glacier only 50 years old." (Gkol. 

 Mag., 1872, Vol. IX. p. 484). 



The fact is, we have been pursuing a Will o' the Wisp instead of 

 a real induction in following the lead of the cultivators of the great 

 Glacial Myth. We must countermarch, that is plain ; we must get 

 rid altogether of the notion that half the Northern temperate zone 

 was swathed in ice and snow, and realize it as it may be still 

 realized in New Zealand, in the Himalayas, and the Altai Mountains, 

 where glacier and forest are almost conterminous. 



