50 Where did Life Begin? 



changes would probably have taken place in 

 those animals lingering behind in the arctic 

 zone after the species to which they belonged 

 had chiefly moved southward, remaining there 

 until its tropical climate had become temper- 

 ate and then frigid. These remnants, in their 

 struggle for adaptation to the new conditions 

 of increasing cold would, after passing through 

 the temperate and encountering the frigid 

 climate, doubtless have been exterminated or 

 would have become degenerations, like the 

 whale, the walrus, the sea-lion, and the whole 

 seal tribe of the present arctic regions, reced- 

 ing slowly toward the water and cold-blooded 

 life from which possibly all animal life origi- 

 nally came. 



These deo-enerations themselves furnish 

 some proof that the arctic regions once had 

 a warm climate ; to hold otherwise is to 

 allege that their ancestry forsook a favorable 

 climate for one In which they could only es- 

 cape extermination by degenerating and tak- 

 ing to the water for subsistence. I think it 

 more reasonable to assume that the favorable 

 climate forsook them, and once caught in un- 



