246 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
their present level, those parts which were not submerged 
were covered with glaciers, and destitute of animal life. At 
an after period, an upheaval of some 800 feet took place, 
and then we find the remains of a fauna such as now exists 
in the Arctic seas. A further elevation introduced the 
epoch when creatures, like the rein-deer and mammoth, 
fitted for living in an arctic climate, were intermingled with 
the animals that still inhabit the countr5^ Again, another 
rise of the land, variously estimated at from 50 to 100 feet, 
introduced our present peculiarly temperate climate.* 
We usually find, that the higher the elevation of the 
country, the greater is the cold ; but here we remark, that in 
proportion to the rise of the land, there has been an increase 
of temperature. This induces the supposition that the sink- 
ing of the western coast of Europe, and the deepening of the 
adjoining ocean, had formed a channel, which, if we may so 
express ourselves, drew towards it the icy current from the 
polar sea, and that at an after-time this polar current was 
again directed into another course by the upheaval of the 
bottom of the ocean. 
If contemporaneously with this deepening of the sea on 
the coasts of Europe, there was such a depression of the 
coasts of America as would direct the Gulf-stream up 
through Davis' Straits, or if there were any other alteration 
of the channels of the ocean, by which the two currents were 
kept distinct, a supposition by no means improbable, we 
would then find ample explanation of all the phenomena of 
the glacial period. 
At present, the current from the equator meets and 
mingles with that from the pole. By this means, their dis- 
tinctive characters are in a great measure obliterated. 
But if, by any cosmical arrangement, they were made to 
flow in separate channels, without intermixture, the chill- 
ing influence of the one, and the warming efi'ects of the 
other, would be much more apparent. The districts that 
are at present subjected to the rigours of a frozen climate 
might then rejoice in the mildness and verdure of a tem- 
* If there is any inaccuracy in these statements, we trust to the correction 
of the practical geologists in the meeting. 
