17 



that animal and its companions were finally extinguished by a 

 sudden catastrophe, involving a great diluvial movement over all 

 the Northern hemisphere from the Pyrenees to Behring Strait, but 

 it is consistent with no other conclusion." He has with him in 

 this opinion Dr. Buckland, Sir J. Dawson, Duke of Argyll and 

 several others, English and Foreign. This is then the explanation 

 given by the Catastrophists. As to the cause of such a wide-spread 

 flood, there is much doubt ; but it is generally believed to have 

 arisen from " some immense submergence and some corresponding 

 re-elevation during and towards the end of the Glacial Age." 

 (D. Argyll— 19 Cent., February, 1894.) 



The authority of Professor Prestwich is claimed in support of 

 this submergence. The Post-glacial Period says Sir J. Dawson 

 " was terminated by a great and very general subsidence, 

 accompanied by the disappearance of Palseocosmic man and some 

 large mammalia." 



By the Uniformitarians we are told that the Mammoth dis- 

 appeared gradually as other creatures did, though there may have 

 been local instances of many meeting a sudden death at once. 

 '* Herds of the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros," says Professor 

 Prestwich, " seem to have been destroyed in early Quaternary 

 times. Swept down by the river floods and entombed in the ever- 

 increasing annual ice-growth of the Glacial Period, there they had 

 remained for untold ages, until now released by Summer thaws." 



No geologist will deny the existence of widely flooded and marshy 

 lands during the time that the accumulation of ice lasted. Every 

 Summer the melting of the ice must have caused these, and dur- 

 ing those milder periods known as inter-glacial these floods must 

 have been excessive. Mr. Skertchly, a great authority on the Fen 

 District, speaking of the gravels and sands in the Eastern Counties 

 savs " every phase of their character shows that they are the effect 

 of''great floods sweeping across the face of the country." These 

 floods increased in violence and extent towards the close of the Ice 

 Age. "Whilst the last ice-sheet was disappearing" says the 

 greatest authority we have on those times (James Geikie) " great 

 floods from the melting ice swept over the low grounds of England. 

 To this period must be attributed those tumultuous deposits with 

 palteohthic implements and mammahan remains which are scattered 

 over hill and valley alike. No mere river action can possibly 

 account for the appearance presented by these confused accumula- 

 tions ; they clearly indicate the flow of immense bodies of water. 

 When the final melting ensued the floods probably increased still 

 more so as to inundate wide regions with torrential waters." (Ice 

 Age, p. 534 abbreviated.) 



There is no difiiculty in our imagining that there must have been 

 great loss of Ufe among the animals during such floods as those 



