26 



The Probable Region 



during Tertiary time, I give a short extract from Sir Charles 

 Lyell's " Elements of Geology" : — 



" The nummulitic limestone [which I need hardly say is of 

 Eocene date] of the Swiss Alps rises to more than 10,000 feet 

 above the level of the sea, and attains here and in other mountain- 

 chains a thickness of several thousand feet. It may be said to 

 play a far more important part than any other tertiary group 

 in the solid framework of the earth's crust, whether in 

 Europe, Asia, or Africa. It occurs in Algeria and Morocco, and 

 has been traced from Egypt (where it was largely quarried of 

 old for building the Pyramids) into Asia Minor and across 

 Persia by Bagdad to the mouths of the Indus. It has been 

 observed not only in Cutch but in the mountain-ranges which 

 separate Scinde from Persia, and which form the leading passes 

 into Cabul ; and it has been followed still farther eastward into 

 India as far as Eastern Bengal and the frontiers of China." 

 Further, "Dr. Thomson found nummulites in Western Thibet 

 at an elevation of 16,500 feet." Again, summarising the facts, 

 he says : " All the mountain-chains, such as the Alps, Pyrenees, 

 Carpathians, and Himalayas, into the composition of whose 

 loftier parts the nummulitic strata enter bodily, could have had 

 no existence till after the middle Eocene period. During that 

 period the sea prevailed where these chains now rise" (pp. 

 260-1). 



Since elevation has never taken place suddenly, it follows that 

 from the beginning of Miocene times these mountains and 

 plateaus have gradually risen, through the Miocene and Pliocene 

 epochs, till at last they attained their present elevation. 

 The fact of their gradual and not sudden elevation is marked 

 by the known deposits of Miocene and Pliocene age on the 

 flanks and bases of mountain-ranges of the Pyrenees, the 

 Caucasus, the Himalayas, as well as the mountain-ranges of 

 Italy, and also in Greece. Now it was in later Miocene and in 

 Pliocene times that the family of anthropoid apes occupied 

 this region, and were, along with hordes of other animals, en- 

 deavouring to become adapted to the lower temperature which 

 was stealing upon them gradually from the north. As time 

 went on, the increase of cold, which proceeded from the re- 

 frigerating causes that culminated in the last glacial epoch, had 

 added to it the increase of cold due to gradual elevation of the 

 land in this extensive zone. The effect of gradual elevation 

 would manifestly be to greatly augment the changes of structure, 

 habit, and character of those apes that were able to keep up the 

 struggle. These changes, as I have already said, would be — first, 

 a hardened power of contending with cold ; the acquisition of 

 habits of living on varied food ; of using weapons of self-defence, 



