422 ME. F. W. HAEMER Olf THE [-^^o- ^9^^i 



from time to time in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean 

 during the Glacial Period. 



Cyclonic storms from the Atlantic hardly touch the nortliern coast 

 of Africa at present, but in Pleistocene times they might now and 

 then ha^e been diverted to the south of the Atlas Mountains by the 

 existence of the anticyclone of the European ice-sheet, so bringing 

 rain-bearing winds over the Sahara (fig. 21, p. 458). 



A similar explanation may be given, I think, of the pluvial 

 conditions (implying not only a greater rainfall, but also storms 

 of considerable violence) which formerly existed in Syria and 

 Palestine, and in parts of Arabia. These, contemporaneous, in 

 Prof. Hull's opinion, with the glaciation of Hermou and Lebanon,^ 

 must have been due to an arrangement of the isobaric lines different 

 from that now existing in the Levant. Winds blowing from the 

 Mediterranean or from the lied Sea might have been, in that case, 

 prevalent in Syria, their moisture being condensed by the colder air 

 of the hill-countries of these regions.^ 



III. The Former Existence of the Mammoth on the Shores of 



THE Polar Sea. 



Meteorology may perhaps explain the former abundance of 

 mammalian life in the extreme north of Asia. 



The mammoth (ElepJias primigenius) is known tu have had a 

 wide distribution in Pleistocene times, but nowhere are its remains 

 more common than along the Asiatic shores of the Polar Sea. They 

 occur in all parts of IN^orthern Siberia, from the Ural Mountains to 

 Eehring Strait, and east of the latter in Alaska ^ ; as well as in 

 the Aleutian, the Pribilof, and the Liakof Archipelagos, the latter 

 being situated as far north as lat. 75° N. llussian geologists 

 believe that the mammoth and its contemporaries, among which 

 the moose, a woodland form, may be specially mentioned,* lived 

 where their fossil skeletons are found. Although Eleplias 2)7^imi~ 

 genius was more or less a boreal species, it could not have flourished 

 except in a district in which its natural food was abundant ; but 

 the extreme northern limit of the forests lies now considerably 

 to the south of the region in question. 



At present the summer temperature of Northern Siberia is not 

 especially cold, but is as warm as' that of Norway, the July isotherm 

 of 50° Eahr. intersecting alike the North Cape and the coast-line of 

 the province of Yakutsk (fig. 7, p. 419). On the contrary, its winter 

 climate is exceedingly severe, the average temperature of one 

 district in the extreme north of Siberia for January falling to 



^ ' Memoir on the Geology & Geography of Arabia Petniia. Palestine, &e.' 

 1889, p. 114. 



^ The question of the flood-gravels of Northern Italy and of Southern France 

 is discussed later on (p. 463). 



^ An admirable summary of the facts connected with the range of the 

 anammoth during the Pleistocene Epoch is given in Sir Henry Howorth's ' The 

 Mammoth & the Flood ' 1887. 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. 1 (1894) p. 7. 



