Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/388

368 in depth not being more than three or four feet; so that at the rate of upheaval, which is now going on in many parts of Scandinavia, of two and a half feet in a century, such straits might be closed in 3000 years, and a vast accumulation of ice to the northward commence forthwith.

But, on the other hand, although such an accumulation might spread its refrigerating influence for many miles southwards beyond the new barrier, the warm current which now penetrates through the straits, and which at other times is chilled by floating ice issuing from them, would, when totally excluded from all communication with the icy sea, have its temperature raised and its course altered, so that the climate of some other area must immediately begin to improve.

The scope and limits of this volume forbid my pursuing these speculations and reasonings farther; but I trust I have said enough to show that the monuments of the glacial period, when more thoroughly investigated, will do much towards expanding our views as to the antiquity of the fauna and flora now contemporary with man, and will therefore enable us the better to determine the time at which man began in the northern hemisphere to form part of the existing fauna.