temperate lands of North America and Europe, are inexplicable on the theory
of creation. We cannot say that they have been created alike, in
correspondence with the nearly similar physical conditions of the areas;
for if we compare, for instance, certain parts of South America with the
southern continents of the Old World, we see countries closely
corresponding in all their physical conditions, but with their inhabitants
utterly dissimilar. {373}

But we must return to our more immediate subject, the Glacial period. I am
convinced that Forbes's view may be largely extended. In Europe we have the
plainest evidence of the cold period, from the western shores of Britain to
the Oural range, and southward to the Pyrenees. We may infer from the
frozen mammals and nature of the mountain vegetation, that Siberia was
similarly affected. Along the Himalaya, at points 900 miles apart, glaciers
have left the marks of their former low descent; and in Sikkim, Dr. Hooker
saw maize growing on gigantic ancient moraines. South of the equator, we
have some direct evidence of former glacial action in New Zealand; and the
same plants, found on widely separated mountains in that island, tell the
same story. If one account which has been published can be trusted, we have
direct evidence of glacial action in the south-eastern corner of Australia.

Looking to America; in the northern half, ice-borne fragments of rock have
been observed on the eastern side as far south as lat. 36 deg.-37 deg., and on the
shores of the Pacific, where the climate is now so different, as far south
as lat. 46 deg.; erratic boulders have, also, been noticed on the Rocky
Mountains. In the Cordillera of Equatorial South America, glaciers once
extended far below their present level. In central Chili I was astonished
at the structure of a vast mound of detritus, about 800 feet in height,
crossing a valley of the Andes; and this I now feel convinced was a
gigantic moraine, left far below any existing glacier. Further south on
both sides of the continent, from lat. 41 deg. to the southernmost extremity,
we have the clearest evidence of former glacial action, in huge boulders
transported far from their parent source.

We do not know that the Glacial epoch was strictly simultaneous at these
several far distant points on {374} opposite sides of the world. But we
have good evidence in almost every case, that the epoch was included within
the latest geological period. We have,