Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
discovered in 1799 in the frozen cliff near the mouth of the Lena, was
carried to St. Petersburg in 1806, from which it was ascertained that
this huge animal was "covered with alight-coloured, curly, very thick-set
hair one to two inches in length, interspersed with darker-colored hair
and bristles from four to eighteen inches long."[BY]
[Footnote BX: Prestwich's Geology, vol. ii, p. 460.]
[Footnote BY: Prestwich's Geology, vol. ii, p. 460.]
In the valleys of Sikkim and eastern Nepaul, in northern India, glaciers
formerly extended 6,000 feet lower than now, or to about the 5,000-foot
level, and in the western Himalayas to a still lower level. The higher
ranges of mountains in other portions of Asia also show many signs of
former glaciation. This is specially true of the Caucasus, where the
ancient glaciers were of vast extent. According, also, to Sir Joseph
Hooker, the cedars of Lebanon flourish upon an ancient moraine. Of the
glacial phenomena in other portions of Asia little is known.
_Africa._
Northern and even central Africa must likewise come in for their share
of attention. The Atlas Mountains, rising to a height of 13,000 feet,
though supporting none at the present time, formerly sustained glaciers
of considerable size. Moraines are found in several places as low as the
4,000-foot level, and one at an altitude of 4,000 feet is from 800 to 900
feet high, and completely crosses and dams up the ravine down which the
glacier formerly came.
Some have supposed that there are indubitable evidences of former
glaciation in the mountain-ranges of southwestern Africa between latitude
30° and 33°, but the evidence is not as unequivocal as we could wish, and
we will not pause upon it.
The mountains of _Australia_, also, some of which rise to a height of
more than 7,000 feet, are supposed to have been once covered with glacial
ice down to the level of 5,800 feet, but the evidence is at present too
scanty to build upon. But in _New Zealand_ the glaciers now clustering
about the peaks in the middle of the South Island, culminating in Mount
Cook, are but diminutive representatives of their predecessors. This is
indicated by extensive moraines in the lower part of the valleys and by
the existence of numerous lakes, attributable, like so many in Europe and
North America, to the irregular deposition of morainic material by the
ancient ice-sheet.[BZ]
[Footnote BZ: See With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps, by G. E.
Mannering, 1891.]
CHAPTER VII.
DRAINAGE SYSTEMS AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD.
We will begin the consideration of this part of our subject, also, with
the presentation of the salient facts in North America, since that field
is simpler than any field in the Old World.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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