ently protected during winter by a covering of snow
from very low temperatures, and they are at the same time prevented from
drying up. If they are given sufficient moisture and a constant, mild
temperature they seem to do very well. Such conditions are afforded them
in many parts of the British Islands, and we find indeed the Mountain
Avens (_Dryas octopetala_), one of the most typically Arctic plants,
growing wild in profusion on the coast of Galway, in Ireland, at
sea-level. The winter temperature of that part of Ireland resembles
that of southern Europe, being no less than 12 deg. Fahr. above freezing
point. This fact appears to strengthen the view not only that the Alpine
flora is of pre-glacial origin, but that the climate of Europe during
the Glacial period was mild.

Having now shortly reviewed the state of our knowledge with regard to
the former presence in our temperate latitudes of Arctic animals and
plants, it still remains for me to give a succinct statement of the
light thrown by this fauna and flora on the widespread phenomena of
glaciation. It is necessary to do so, because, though the greater
development of glaciers on the mountains of Europe in former times does
not presuppose the prevalence of an Arctic climate, the survival through
the Ice Age of a fauna and flora could not possibly have taken place in
northern Europe if the theories of glaciation now so much in vogue are
really true. Professor Geikie reminds us, in speaking of his native
country (p. 67), that "we must believe that all the hills and valleys
were once swathed in snow and ice; that the whole of Scotland was at
some distant date buried underneath one immense _mer de glace_, through
which peered only the higher mountain tops." That under such conditions
no fauna or flora to speak of could have survived in Scotland is
evident. Then again he argues (p. 426) that because in the great plain
of Europe we meet occasionally with striated rock-surfaces and _roches
moutonnees_ very similar to those produced by the glaciers of
Switzerland, it must have been traversed by "inland ice" flowing from
Scandinavia and the Baltic southward. The boulder clay of Germany is
supposed to have accumulated underneath this vast "_mer de glace_," as
he calls it. There is no question here of a simple local development of
glaciers, such as could have existed under a mild and moist climate;
practically all the plants and animals would have been annihilated in
norther