162 Dr. W. T. BJan ford— Age of the Himalayas. 



Glacial epoch, the Himalaj'an glaciers would have invaded the 

 plains of India, just as the Alpine glaciers reached the plains of 

 Lombardy ; and I said that tliis w^as precisely' equivalent to arguing 

 that the glaciers of the Alps at the present daj'^ ought to descend to 

 the sea-level because tliose of Greenland do so, the difference in 

 latitude between the Himalayas and Alps being about the same as 

 that between the Alps and Greenland. Mr. Howorth says he does 

 not quite understand the reference to latitude ; he asks what latitude 

 has to do with the question, and then proceeds to a disquisition 

 about the Urals, Altai Mountains, and Northern Eockies. I decline 

 to complicate the question by dealing with these mountains. Mr. 

 Howorth says it is not latitude that has to do with the question, but 

 an abundant supply of moisture and a suflficientU' powerful source 

 of cold. I can only conclude from this that, in Mr. Howorth's 

 opinion, the temperature of the earth's surface does not var}'' with 

 the latitude, or did not in the Glacial epoch, and that the distance 

 from the Equator has no relation to the "source of cold." I quite 

 admit the importance of an abundant supply of moisture in the 

 production of glaciers, and I believe the reason that no glacial 

 markings are to be seen on some mountains is simply due to want 

 of sufficient snow. 



(o) By far the best example of a reply of Mr. Howorth's to 

 something that I did not say is in the case of the Tibetan 

 Ehinoceros. I said (p. 374), " where Yaks can find food, there is 

 no reason why a Ehinoceros should not obtain subsistence." I also 

 pointed out that the remains of PantJiolops, an antelope now 

 peculiar to high elevations in Tibet, occurred with those of the 

 Tibetan Ehinoceros, and I asked if it were more likely that 

 Pantholops formerly inhabited a low level or the Ehinoceros a high 

 one. These two arguments Mr. Howorth says he does not quite 

 follow, and, to show that he does not, he understands me to say, 

 " that because the Wild Ass and the Antelope can live now at great 

 heights, the Ehinoceros could do the same." 



This is really a stroke of genius. It is almost a pity that Mr. 

 Howorth, having set up so beautiful a man of straw, should have 

 been tempted by the bad example of his predecessors in the art, 

 into dealing with his creation as it has been customary to deal with 

 men of straw from time immemorial. For in his song of victory 

 over his discomfited puppet, he deals with subjects concerning which 

 his acquaintance is somewhat imperfect. He informs us, for instance, 

 that the Ehinoceros is a tree-feeding and shrub-feeding animal, 

 which is startling, as two of the five species now, or very recently, 

 existing, namely, R. simus and E. unicornis, live, or lived, chiefly, if 

 not entirely, on grass, and then he adds that " we know the kind of 

 trees which the RJiinoceros aniiquitatis fed upon," which is perfectly 

 true, but has nothing to do with the food of the Tibetan Ehinoceros, 

 for whatever the latter maj^ have been, it was assuredly not E. anii- 

 quitatis, nor had it any near affinity to R. aniiquitatis. A reference 

 to the "Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in tlie British Museum" 

 (vol. iii. p. 158) will show that the Tibetan Ehinoceros was closely 



