100 
ICE-PERIOD IN AMERICA. 
fair proportions, granite was carried into the 
lime regions, lime was mingled with the more 
arid and unproductive granite districts, and a 
soil was prepared fit for the agricultural uses 
of man. I have been asked whether this in¬ 
ference was not inconsistent with the fact that 
a rich vegetation preceded the ice-period, — a 
vegetation sufficiently abundant to sustain the 
tropical animals then living throughout the 
temperate regions. But the vegetation which 
has succeeded the ice-period is of a differ¬ 
ent character, and one that could not have 
flourished on a soil that would nourish a more 
tropical growth. The soil we have now over 
the temperate zone is a grain-growing soil,— 
one especially adapted to those plants most 
necessary to the higher domestic and social 
organizations of the human race. Therefore I 
think we may believe that God did not shroud 
the world he had made in snow and ice with¬ 
out a purpose, and that this, like many other 
operations of his providence, seemingly de¬ 
structive and chaotic in its first effects, is 
nevertheless a work of beneficence and order. 
