ope. On the one hand, we have a country with
a mild and genial climate. Trees of a warm latitude were then growing as
far north as Paris, and we may well suppose Europe to have abounded in
shady forests and grassy plains, through which flowed large rivers. It
was just such a country as that in which elephants and southern animals
would flourish, while vast herds of deer and bovine animals wandered
over the entire length and breadth of the land. Where animal life was
so abundant there were sure to be carnivorous animals also, and lions,
hyenas, tigers, and other animals added to the variety of animal life.

This, however, is but one side of the picture. The other presents us
with a very different scene; instead of an abundant forest growth, the
land supported only dwarf birch, arctic willows, and stunted mosses.
Arctic animals, such as musk-sheep and reindeer, lived all the year
around in Southern France. The woolly mammoth lived in Spain and Italy.
In short, the climate and conditions of life were vastly different in
the two stages.

We must now turn our attention to the proofs of glaciers in Europe, the
phenomena from which this age derives its name. Descriptions of Alpine
glaciers are common enough, but as glaciers and the Glacial Age have a
great deal to do with the antiquity of man, we can not do better than
to learn what we can of their formation, and their wonderful extension
during this period. The school-boy knows that by pressure he gives his
snowball nearly the hardness of ice. He could make it really ice if he
possessed sufficient strength. The fact is, then, that snow under the
influence of pressure passes into the form of ice. In some cases nature
does this on a large scale. Where mountains are sufficiently elevated
to raise their heads above the snow line we know they are white all the
year around with snow. What is not blown away, evaporated, or, as an
avalanche, precipitated to lower heights, must accumulate from year to
year. But the weight pressing on the lower portions of this snow-field
must soon be considerable, and at length become so great, that the
snow changes to the form of ice. But as ice it is no longer fixed and
immovable. We need not stop to explain just how this ice-field moves,
but the fact is that, though moving very slowly, it acts like a liquid
body. It will steal away over any incline however small, down which
water would flow. Like a river it fills the valleys leading down from
the