214 SKETCHES OF C ME ATI OK 



the middle latitudes, the resultant of which movements 

 was the establishment of a vast area of dry land extending 

 over all that portion of North America covered by the 

 temperate zone. The northern regions were still the bed 

 of a vast circumpolar ocean. Now, in turn, the high north- 

 ern latitudes experience an unwonted uplift. Arctic lands 

 raise high their dripping heads above the temperate waters 

 of the polar zone. The climate of the whole northern hem- 

 isphere feels the change. No moving currents can now 

 bear torrid warmth to the frozen sea, and return the colder 

 waters to the equatorial zone. The stable land bears 

 sternly the vicissitudes of the clime, smiling coldly in the 

 slanting rays of a summer's sun, and gloaming darkly be- 

 neath the auroral shimmering of arctic midnight. The ac- 

 cumulated cold of years binds all the northern latitudes in 

 indissoluble bonds of ice. The northern blast bears frost 

 along the vales which had never felt its power. The lim- 

 pid streams grow torpid, and then rest in a long hibernal 

 sleep. The verdure of forest and plain, touched by the 

 first breath of winter, shrinks away, and the sere and black- 

 ened leaf hangs where there had been perennial green. The 

 ponderous tread of the mastodon turns from the withered 

 meadow to the frozen jungle, and the shivering tapir 

 yields himself a victim to the strange rigors of the climate. 

 The snows of many winters are gathered on the slopes of 

 northern America, and the summer's sun suffices but to 

 change them to a bed of porous ice. Glaciers brood over 

 all the land, and Alpine desolation reigns without a rival 

 over half the continent. Such was the fate of the fair vales 

 which we thought just ready for the occupancy of the hu- 

 man race. 



The marks of this stupendous glacier are still visible. 

 As in the glaciers of the Alps, the expansion produced by 

 a summer's warmth would tend to create a motion in the 



