THE REIGN OF ICE. 213 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE REIGN OF ICE. 



WHEN the continent of North America, which had 

 been growing through unnumbered ages by contin- 

 ual annexations of land wrested from the dominion of the 

 sea, had finally attained the dimensions and outline des- 

 tined to endure through the human era — when the great 

 mountain axes had been uplifted, and the broad river 

 streams were rolling the drainage of the valleys and hill- 

 slopes to the sea — when the horse and the camel, the ele- 

 phant, the bear, and other quadrupeds which were to char- 

 acterize the epoch of man, had assumed their stations on 

 the land — when the atmosphere was populated by birds 

 and insects which were destined in a coming a^e to be 

 startled by the presence of a dominant intelligence — when 

 the beech, the tulip-tree, the linden, and the buttonwood 

 had taken their places on the jungle's margin and the high- 

 land slope, and the sorrowing willow had begun to weep 

 above the flowing waters of the sedffe-bordered stream — 

 when the whole face of Nature seemed fitted and expect- 

 ant of the crowning work of creation, what should prevent 

 the divine Artificer from summoning man upon the scene 

 to begin the labor of his earthly life? To a finite intelli- 

 gence the preparation was complete. To the eye of Om- 

 niscience one more revolution was needed. The coming 

 man must tarry without the doors of the temple of life 

 through yet another geological aeon. 



To this time the evolution of the continent had proceed- 

 ed by elevations and subsidences of the regions lying in 



