338 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



tic States were repossessed by the descendants of the tertiary plants, 

 they were still separated, by many thousand miles, from their brethren 

 which had formerly crossed the now submerged bridge of Behring's 

 Straits ; and thus the two kindreds have been growing, and flowering, 

 and seeding, and dying in each colony far beyond the reach of the other 

 and developing their peculiarities each in its own way from generation 

 to generation. When now we come to compare the present flora of 

 China and Japan with that of the eastern half of our continent, we find 

 the strongest proofs of their intimate relationship. Many of the species 

 are identical, while others are but slightly changed, and, on the whole, 

 the differences are less than such as have grown out of separation in 

 human kindred colonies in an infinitely shorter period. 



Among the great mammals that formerly inhabited our continent, 

 but such as are now extinct, there were some which seem to have bid 

 defiance to the changes I have detailed. These were particularly the 

 mastodon and elephant, both of which were probably capable of endur- 

 ing great severity of climate. The mammoth, we know, was well de- 

 fended from the cold by a thick coat of hair and wool, and was probably 

 capable of enduring a degree of cold as severe as that in which the 

 musk-ox now lives. We know that both these great monsters — the 

 elephant and mastodon — continued to inhabit the interior of our con- 

 tinent long after the glaciers had retreated beyond the upper lakes, 

 and when the minutest details of surface topography were the same 

 as now. This is proven by the fact that we not unfrequently find them 

 embedded in peat in marshes which are still marshes, where they have 

 been mired and suffocated. It is even claimed that here, as on the 

 European continent, man was a cotemporary of the mammoth, and that 

 here, as there, he contributed largely to its final extinction. On this 

 point, however, more and better evidence than any yet obtained is 

 necessary, before we can consider the cotemporaneity of man and the 

 elephant in America as proven. The wanting proof may be obtained 

 to-morrow, but to-day we are without it. 



The pictures which geology holds up to our view of North America 

 during the tertiary ages are in all respects, but one, more attractive 

 and interesting than could be drawn from its present aspects. Then a 

 warm and genial climate prevailed from the Gulf to the Arctic Sea ; the 

 Canadian highlands were higher, but the Eocky Mountains lower and 

 less broad. Most of the continent exhibited an undulating surface, 

 rounded hills and broad valleys covered with forests grander than any of 

 the present day, or wide expanses of rich savannah, over which roamed 

 countless herds of animals, many of gigantic size, of which our present 

 meager fauna retains but a few dwarfed representatives. Noble rivers 

 flowed through plains and valleys, and sea-bke lakes, broader and more 

 numerous than those the continent now bears, diversified the scenery. 

 Through unnumbered ages the seasons ran their ceaseless course, the sun 

 rose and set, moons waxed and waned over this fair land, but no human 

 eye was there to mark its beauty, nor human intellect to control and use its 

 exuberant fertility. Flowers opened their many-colored petals on mea- 

 dow and hill-side, and filled the air with their perfumes, but only for the 

 delectation of the wandering bee. Fruits ripened in the sun, but there 

 was no hand there to pluck, nor any speaking tongue to taste. Birds 

 sang in the trees, but for no ears but their own. The surface of lake or 

 river was whitened by no sail, nor furrowed by any |3row but the breast 

 of the water-fowl ; and the far-reaching shores echoed no sound but the 

 dash of the waves and the lowing of the herds that slaked their thirst in 

 the crystal waters. 



