29 
" If," says the Rev. Thos. Milner, " we embrace the idea 
"of a warmer climate prevailing in the northern regions, 
" when these animals tenanted them, it is necessary to suppose 
" an immediate reduction of the temperature to have been 
" coincident with their destruction. For, had not the mammoth 
"been at once frozen, and enclosed in its icy sepulchre, the 
" carcase must have perished from the decomposing action of 
" the elements." " The subject," he says, " is beset with 
" difficulties, whatever view is taken of it, which defy 
" intelligence to remove." 
AYe have then, not only to show cause for a far greater 
heat, but also for a far greater cold in northern regions, 
before our facts can be explained. 
Now where are we to look for aid when we require an 
explanation with regard to heat and cold ? Chemistry is the 
science at once suggested to us. But chemistry is an experi- 
mental science, and it is impossible to experiment upon a 
climate which existed 6,000 or 7,000 years past. Besides, 
great as have been the discoveries of chemists, still their 
science has not yet been able to show the true cause of heat 
and cold in the atmosphere. The observer of these changes 
registers facts, but does not always show causes. Such must 
have been the state of the climate, says the chemist, but 
what produced that climate I know not. 
Sun-light and sun-heat have been found essential to the 
growth of these plants.* It would appear then that, unless 
by a miracle, the facts brought forward by geologists cannot 
be accounted for, unless we admit that there was more 
s~un- light and more sun-heat in northern regions when coal 
beds were formed, than there is at the present time. Mr. 
Thorp has remarked that astronomy has not yet aided 
geology, but he appears to have overlooked an important 
preliminary consideration, viz., whether astronomy were yet 
* Experiments of Robert Hunt, Esq., F.E.S., &c. 
