Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/78

68 periods, temperate conditions seem to have prevailed even to the pole. Of the many theories as to these changes which have been proposed, two seem at present to divide the suffrages of geologists, either alone, or combined with each other. These are—1. The theory of the precession of the equinoxes in connection with the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, advocated more especially by Croll; and, 2. The different distribution of land and water as affecting the reception and radiation of heat and the ocean-currents—a theory ably propounded by Lyell, and subsequently extensively adopted, either alone or with the previous one. One of these views may be called the astronomical; the other, the geographical. I confess that I am inclined to accept the second or Lyellian theory, for such reasons as the following: 1. Great elevations and depressions of land have occurred in and since the pleistocene, while the alleged astronomical changes are not certain, more especially in regard to their probable effect on the earth. 2. "When the rival theories are tested by the present phenomena of the southern polar region and the North Atlantic, there seem to be geographical causes adequate to account for all except extreme and unproved glacial conditions. 3. The astronomical cause would suppose regularly recurring glacial periods of which there is no evidence, and it would give to the latest glacial age an antiquity which seems at variance with all other facts. 4. In those more northern regions where glacial phenomena are most pronounced, the theory of floating sheets of ice, with local glaciers descending to the sea, seems to meet all the conditions of the case; and these would be obtained, in the North Atlantic at least, by very moderate changes of level, causing, for example, the equatorial current to flow into the Pacific, instead of running northward as a gulf stream. 5. The geographical theory allows the supposition not merely of vicissitudes of climate quickly following each other in unison with the movements of the surface, but allows also of that near local approximation of regions wholly covered with ice and snow, and others comparatively temperate, which we see at present in the north.

If, however, we are to adopt the geographical theory, we must avoid extreme views; and this leads to the inquiry as to the evidence to be found for any such universal and extreme glaciation as is demanded by some geologists.

The only large continental area in the northern hemisphere supposed to be entirely ice- and snow-clad is Greenland; and this, so far as it goes, is certainly a local case, for the ice and snow of Greenland extend to the south as far as 60° north latitude, while both in Norway and in the interior of North America the climate in that latitude permits the growth of cereals. Further, Grinnell Land, which is separated from North Greenland only by a narrow sound, has a comparatively mild climate, and, as Nares has shown, is covered with verdure in summer. Still further, Nordenskiöld, one of the most experienced