426 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



that the glacial epoch had no effect whatever in lowering 

 the temperature of equatorial plains, while it might easily 

 lower the snow-line on even equatorial mountains. Those 

 interested in this question, after reading Darwin's exposition 

 of his views, should read the twenty-third chapter of my 

 " Island Life/' the facts and arguments in which, so far as I 

 am aware, have never been controverted. Darwin himself, 

 however, never accepted them. 



On the question of the ice-origin of Alpine lakes I 

 had much correspondence with Sir Charles, but I could never 

 get him to accept my extreme views. In March, 1869, I 

 received from him a letter of thirteen pages, and another of 

 thirty pages, on this and allied questions, setting forth the 

 reasons why he rejected ice action as having ground out 

 the larger lakes, much as he states them in the fourth 

 edition of " The Antiquity of Man." At page 361 he says 

 that " the gravest objection to the hypothesis of glacial 

 erosion on a stupendous scale is afforded by the entire 

 absence of lakes of the first magnitude in several areas 

 where they ought to exist, if the enormous glaciers which 

 once occupied those spaces had possessed the deep excavat- 

 ing power ascribed to them." He then goes on to adduce 

 numerous places where he thinks there ought to have been 

 lakes on the glacier theory, which are the same as he adduced 

 in letters to myself, and which I answered in each case, and 

 sometimes at great length, by similar arguments to those I 

 have adduced in vol. i. chap. v. of my " Studies, Scientific 

 and Social." If any one who is interested in these questions, 

 after considering Sir Charles Lyell's difficulties and objections 

 in his Antiquity of Man," will read the above cnapter, 

 giving special attention to the sections headed The Con- 

 ditions that favour the Production of Lakes by Ice-erosion, and 

 the following section on Objections of Modern Writers 

 considered, I think he will, if he had paid any attention to the 

 phenomena in glaciated regions, admit that I show the theory 

 of ice-erosion to be the only one that explains all the facts. 



During the same year (1869) I find passages of interest 



