328 GEOLOGY. 



but to a much less degree. In Patagonia and New Zealand, glaciers 

 crept down from the mountains and spread out on the lowlands to 

 notable extents. Glaciers formed on the mountainous tracts of Tas- 

 mania and Australia where none exist now. The higher mountains 

 of the southern hemisphere generally bore glaciers even in low lati- 

 tudes. Antarctica was presumably buried beneath ice as now, but 

 this is purely a matter of inference. Notable as was this glaciation 

 of the southern hemisphere, it was insignificant compared with the 

 deployment of ice in the northern hemisphere. 



In Asia, ice fields much greater than those of the present time 

 affected the higher mountains. Though its extent is but partially 

 known, former glacial work has been recognized at various points from 

 the Lebanon and Caucasus mountains in the southwest, eastward 

 along the high ranges to the Himalayas and the high mountains of 

 China, and northward to the ranges of eastern Siberia. On the plateaus 

 and lowlands of Asia, ice-sheets were far less extensive than in Europe 

 and North America. It has been both affirmed and denied that the 

 Mongolian plateau was glaciated. The northern border of Siberia 

 in the region of the Taimur peninsula, and again in the far northeast, 

 was covered with ice, and glaciers descended from the northern Urals 

 to the plains of the Obi. With the exception of a portion of the Siberian 

 tract, all the Asian glaciation was associated with high altitudes. 



In Europe, there were large glaciers in the southern mountains and 

 extensive ice-sheets on the northwestern plains. Radiating from the 

 Scandinavian highlands, a succession of great ice-sheets crept forth 

 upon the lowlands of Russia, Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Bel- 

 gium, and, apparently crossing the shallow basin of the North Sea, 

 touched the shores of England and Scotland, where they were met by 

 ice radiating from the mountains of Great Britain (Fig. 528). From 

 the Alps, gigantic glaciers descended to the lowlands in all directions. 

 Thus the Rhone glacier moved out far beyond the mountains, and 

 became confluent with glaciers from the mountains of Savoy and 

 Dauphiny, on the plains of France; 1 while from the southern Alps, 

 glaciers descended to the plains of Italy. Glaciers of similar dimen- 

 sions descended into the vahWs of the Rhine and the Danube. The 

 Pyrenees, some of the higher mountains of the Spanish plateau, the 



1 Geikie, J., Outlines of Geology, p. 373. 



