State Convention—The Soil of Wisconsin. 
351 
counted for by supposing that the warm waters of what is now the 
Gulf of Mexico flowed inland through the great valley of the Mis¬ 
sissippi—an ancient gulf-stream, laden with heat and moisture— 
followed by marine estuaries, covering largely the great inter-con¬ 
tinental basin. Intensity of cold was followed by intensity of heat. 
The frozen and arctic waste became an almost tropical region, cloth¬ 
ed with a vegetation hitherto, for a long period, unknown in this 
parallel of latitude. Warm zephyrs replaced the freezing blasts. 
Ice and snow retreated.toward the north, defeated in the now une¬ 
qual combat, and organic life, in higher forms, came to welcome the 
dawn of a new birth; advancing steadily forward as the coast-line 
receded in all directions from the primitive axis of elevation, or 
from u islands in the watery waste.” It seems, from modern evi¬ 
dence, that, the Pacific coast alone escaped these extremes of cli¬ 
mate, and has probably maintained a nearly uniform condition of 
temperature since the era of the drift-deposits. 
The proof of the existence of such a climate as is above described, 
independent of the fossil forms found on the great plains of the 
west, rests upon very plain evidence. The gigantic mammalia are 
found to have put in an appearance as soon as a condition was 
reached of adequate food-supply. First, probably, came the masto¬ 
don, and then the mammoth megalonyx, the elephant, and kin¬ 
dred species. These giants of a primeval world, required for their 
support an amount of food that would breed a famine in any of our 
townships for a single individual, if now living; and we are equally 
certain that no elephant, for example, could now survive the rigors 
of a Wisconsin winter, living in a state of nature. And } T et these 
huge creations swarmed in millions during the period we are con¬ 
sidering, intermingled with a great number of species of ruminants 
and carnivora. Their remains are often found over nearly all por¬ 
tions of the continent. The mastodon, covered with wool and hair, 
both ante-dated, and doubtless survived, the naked elephant, and 
longest held the field; disappearing finally only when existence up¬ 
on the dwarfed vegetation of modern times had become impossible. 
The soil of the drift-epoch must have been rich in every ele¬ 
ment of fertility, to have produced a vegetation capable of support¬ 
ing these huge, if not monstrous shapes. They sprang into being 
when the continental surface was but little elevated above the sea. 
They perished when the elevation w T as sufficiently great to radically 
