CHAP. IX.] 
ANCIENT GLACIAL EPOCHS. 
173 
during some part of the Tertiary period these mountains may 
have been far higher than they are now, and this we know 
might be sufficient for the production of glaciers descending to 
the sea-level, even were the climate of the lowlands somewhat 
warmer than at present. 1 . 
The weight of the negative evidence . — But when we proceed to 
examine the Tertiary deposits of other parts of Europe, and 
especially of our own country, for evidence of this kind, not 
only is such evidence completely wanting, but the facts are of 
so definite a character as to satisfy most geologists that it can 
never have existed ; and the same may be said of temperate 
North America and of the Arctic regions generally. 
In his carefully written paper on “ The Climate Controversy ” 
Mr. Searles V. Wood, Jun., remarks on this point as follows : 
“Now the Eocene formation is complete in England, and is 
exposed in continuous section along the north coast of the Isle 
of Wight from its base to its junction with the Oligocene (or 
Lower Miocene according to some), and along the northern 
coast of Kent from its base to the Lower Bagshot Sand. It has 
been intersected by railway and other cuttings in all directions 
and at all horizons, and pierced by wells innumerable ; while 
from its strata in England, France, and Belgium, the most 
1 Prof. J. W. Judd says : “ In the case of the Alps I know of no glacial 
phenomena which are not capable of being explained, like those of New 
Zealand, by a great extension of the area of the tracts above the snow-line 
which would collect more ample supplies for the glaciers protruded into 
surrounding plains. And when we survey the grand panoramas of ridges, 
pinnacles, and peaks produced for the most part by sub-aerial action, we 
may well be prepared to admit that before the intervening ravines and 
valleys were excavated, the glaciers shed from the elevated plateaux must 
have been of vastly greater magnitude than at present. 1 ’ (Contributions 
to the Study of Volcanoes, Geological Magazine , 1876, p. 536.) Profess or 
Judd applies these remarks to the last as well as to previous glacial periods 
in the Alps ; but surely there has been no such extensive alteration and 
lowering of the surface of the country since the erratic blocks were de- 
posited on the Jura and the great moraines formed in North Italy, as this 
theory would imply. We can hardly suppose wide areas to have been 
lowered thousands of feet by denudation, and yet have left other adjacent 
areas apparently untouched ; and it is even very doubtful whether such 
an extension of the snow-fields would alone suffice for the effects which 
were certainly produced. 
