THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 395 



think, we can understand the presence of some closely 

 allied, still existing and extinct tertiary forms, on the 

 eastern and western shores of temperate North America; 

 and the still more striking fact of many closely allied crus- 

 taceans (as described in Dana's admirable work), some fish 

 and other marine animals, inhabiting the Mediterranean 

 and the seas of Japan — these two areas being now com- 

 pletely separated by the breadth of a whole continent and 

 by wide spaces of ocean. 



These cases of close relationship in species either now or 

 formerly inhabiting the seas on the eastern and western 

 shores of North America, the Mediterranean and Japan, 

 and the temperate lands of North America and Europe, 

 are inexplicable on the theory of creation. We cannot 

 maintain that such species have been created alike, in cor- 

 respondence with the nearly similar physical conditions of 

 the areas; for if we compare, for instance, certain parts of 

 South America with parts of South Africa or Australia, we 

 see countries closely similar in all their physical conditions, 

 with their inhabitants utterly dissimilar. 



ALTERNATE GLACIAL PEEIODS IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 



But we must return to our more immediate subject. I 

 am convinced that Forbes' view may be largely extended. 

 In Europe we meet with the plainest evidence of the Grlacial 

 period, from the western shores of Britain to the Ural 

 range, and southward to the Pyrenees. We may infer 

 from the frozen mammals and nature of the mountain 

 vegetation, that Siberia was similarly affected. In the Leb- 

 anon, according to Dr. Hooker, perpetual snow formerly 

 covered the central axis, and fed glaciers which rolled 

 4,000 feet down the valleys. The same observer has 

 recently found great moraines at a low level on the Atlas 

 range in North Africa. Along the Himalaya, at points 

 900 miles apart, glaciers have left the marks of their 

 former low descent; and in Sikkim, Dr. Hooker saw maize 

 growing on ancient and gigantic moraines. Southward of 

 the Asiatic continent, on the opposite side of the equator, 

 we know, from the excellent researches of Dr. J. Haast 

 and Dr. Hector, that in New Zealand immense glaciers 

 formerly descended to a low level; and the same plants 



