2 
GLACIAL PERIOD. 
former boundaries with any great change in 
the climatic conditions of the whole continent. 
His explanation of the phenomena rested upon 
the assumption that the Alps formerly rose 
far beyond their present height; their greater 
altitude, he thought, would account for the 
existence of immense glaciers extending from 
the Alps across the plain of Switzerland to 
the Jura. Inexperienced as I then was, and 
ignorant of the modes by which new views, 
if founded on truth, commend themselves 
gradually to general acceptation, I was often 
deeply depressed by the scepticism of men 
whose scientific position gave them a right to 
condemn the views of younger and less ex¬ 
perienced students. I can smile now at the 
difficulties which then beset my path, but at 
the time they seemed serious enough. It is 
but lately, that, in turning over the leaves of 
a journal, published some twelve or fifteen 
years ago, to look for a forgotten date, I was 
amused to find a formal announcement, under 
the signature of the greatest geologist of 
Europe, of the demise of the glacial theory. 
Since then it has risen, phoenix-like, from its 
own funeral pile. 
