nd peaks produced for the most part by sub-aerial action, we
may well be prepared to admit that before the intervening ravines and
valleys were excavated, the glaciers shed from the elevated plateaux must
have been of vastly greater magnitude than at present." (Contributions to
the Study of Volcanoes, _Geological Magazine_, 1876, p. 536.) Professor
Judd applies these remarks to the last as well as to previous glacial
periods in the Alps; but surely there has been no such extensive alteration
and lowering of the surface of the country since the erratic blocks were
deposited on the Jura and the great moraines formed in North Italy, as this
theory would imply. We can hardly suppose wide areas to have been lowered
thousands of feet by denudation, and yet have left other adjacent areas
apparently untouched; and it is even very doubtful whether such an
extension of the snow-fields would alone suffice for the effects which were
certainly produced.

[66] _Geological Magazine_, 1876, p. 392.

[67] Colonel Fielden thinks that these trees have all been brought down by
rivers, and have been stranded on shores which have been recently elevated.
See _Trans. of Norfolk Nat. Hist. Soc., Vol. III._, 1880.

[68] _Geological Magazine_, 1876, "Geology of Spitzbergen," p. 267.

[69] The preceding account is mostly derived from Professor Heer's great
work _Flora Fossilis Arctica_.

[70] _Geological Magazine_, 1875, p. 531.

[71] _Geological Magazine_, 1876, p. 266. In his recent work--_Climate and
Cosmology_ (pp. 164, 172)--the late Dr. Croll has appealed to the
imperfection of the geological record as a reply to these arguments; in
this case, as it appears to me, a very unsuccessful one.

[72] It is interesting to observe that the Cretaceous flora of the United
States (that of the Dakota group), indicates a somewhat cooler climate than
that of the following Eocene period. Mr. De Rance (in the geological
appendix to Capt. Sir G. Nares's _Narrative of a Voyage to the Polar Sea_)
remarks as follows: "In the overlying American Eocenes occur types of
plants occurring in the European Miocenes and still living, proving the
truth of Professor Lesquereux's postulate, that the plant types appear in
America a stage in advance of their advent in Europe. These plants point to
a far higher mean temperature than those of the Dakota group, to a dense
atmosphere of vapour, and a luxuriance of ferns and palms." This is very
important as adding further