Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

THE DRIFT A GIGANTIC CATASTROPHE. 45

privilege is now restricted. . . . Some reasons have been adduced for the belief that in the Miocene and Eocene there were intervals of cold climate ; but the evidence of this may be merely local and exceptional, and does not interfere with the broad characteristics of the age.” *

Sir Edward Belcher brought away from the dreary shores of Wellington Channel (latitude 75° 32’ north) portions of a tree which there can be no doubt whatever had actually grown where he found it. The roots were in place, in a frozen mass of earth, the stump standing upright where it was probably overtaken by the great winter.t Trees have been found, in situ, on Prince Patrick’s Island, in latitude 76° 12’ north, four feet in circumference. They were so old that the wood had lost its combustible quality, and refused to burn. Mr. Geikie thinks that it is possible these trees were pre-glacial, and belonged to the Miocene age. They may have been the remnants of the great forests which clothed that far northern region when the so-called glacial age came on and brought the Drift.

We shall see hereafter that man, possibly civilized man, dwelt in this fair and glorious world—this world that knew no frost, no cold, no ice, no snow ; that he had dwelt in it for thousands of years ; that he witnessed the appalling and sudden calamity which fell upon it; and that he has preserved the memory of this catastrophe to the present day, in a multitude of myths and legends scattered all over the face of the habitable earth.

But was it sudden? Was it a catastrophe?

Again I call the witnesses to the stand, for I ask you, good reader, to accept nothing that is not proved.

In the first place, was it sudden ?

* “arth and Man,” p. 264. { “ The Last of the Arctic Voyages,” vol. i, p. 380.