JBrof. /. IF. Judd—On Volcanos. 535 



not of universal character, we have the most complete proofs which it 

 is possible to conceive. 



As was so well pointed out by Mr. Searles Wood, we find in the 

 Hampshire and Paris basins the most beautiful and perfect 

 illustrations of the whole series of Eocene and Oligocene deposits 

 at a number of points, situated more than ten degrees nearer the pole 

 than the Alpine regions ; and yet in these, not only are we met by 

 the fact of the absence of even the smallest trace of the physical 

 action of glaciers, but, as every student of the British, French, and 

 Belgian Tertiaries is well aware, there is not a particle of evidence 

 in favour of such dwarfing of certain species, accompanied by the 

 migration and extinction of others, which could not fail to ac- 

 company the extension of the supposed polar ice-caps during parts 

 of those periods. 



Again, in the case of the Miocene, we have in the Vienna basin a 

 complete series of deposits formed in the same latitude with" the 

 Alps, which exhibit in the characters of their faunas clear evidence 

 of a gradual passage from tropical, through sub-tropical, to the 

 temperate conditions of the adjoining seas, but no trace whatever of 

 any such interruption as could not fail to have been produced by a 

 period of excessive cold. 



I need scarcely refer to the supposed existence of a " Glacial 

 period " during Jurassic times, for the evidence of which my own 

 observations in Sutherland have been again and again quoted, in 

 spite of the numerous facts which, as I have myself pointed out, 

 militate in the strongest manner against any such hypothesis. 



To the readers of this Magazine, too, it will be unnecessary to 

 recall the important verdict pronounced by Professor Nordenskiold, 

 after his long and careful examination of the geological deposits of 

 the Arctic regions, where surely, if anywhere, evidence in support 

 of the alternation of glacial and mild periods ought to be observed. 

 He declares that " from Palseontological science no support can be 

 obtained for the assumption of a periodical alternation of warm and 

 cold climates on the surface of the earth." 



Nor is the evidence against the universality of glacial periods 

 wholly derived from Palaeontology. The general absence of recent 

 marks of glacial action in Eastern Europe is well known ; and the 

 series of changes which have been so well traced and described by 

 Professor Szabo as occurring in those districts seems to leave no 

 room for those periodical extensions of *' ice-caps " with which some 

 authors in this country have amused themselves and their readers. 



Mr. Campbell, whose ability to recognize the physical evidences 

 of glaciers will scarcely be questioned, finds quite the same absence 

 of the proof of extensive ice-action in North America, westward of 

 the meridian of Chicago. 



In the face of all these facts, it is impossible to avoid the con- 

 clusion that the so-called " Glacial Epoch " was a purely local 

 phenomenon, confined to Western Europe and Eastern America, and 

 that earlier extensions of glacial action were equally due to local 

 causes. 



