The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18): A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the PresentVarious
History
The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18): A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the Present
Various
World history
ice, of which the stone-ice beds of New Siberia and Eschscholtz Bay are
remains.
Of these strata the frozen loam deposits over the stone-ice, containing
the willow and the alder, are doubtless Interglacial. Some of the
remains of the alder are in such wonderful preservation that there are
still leaves and whole clusters of catkins on the branches.
The land-mass to which the present New Siberian Islands belong was
only dismembered at the end of the Interglacial Period, when colder
sea-currents procured an entrance, and the accumulation of snow-masses
diminished simultaneously with the sinking of the land, whereas the
cold increased. The flora died off, says Von Toll, and the animal world
was deprived of the possibility of roaming freely over vast areas. Only
one representative of the great Drift fauna, the musk-ox, has been able
to preserve its life to the present day on the larger remnants of its
former vast home, such as Greenland and Grinnell Land.
[Sidenote: Remains of the Ice Age]
As we have said, the geological and climatic conditions in all regions
of the earth affected by the Glacial Period were closely similar to
those just described. In other places the Drift stone-ice has long
disappeared, but the ground-moraines of the former inland ice-masses,
and the surface-moraines (terminal and lateral) of the former gigantic
glaciers, constitute its unobliterated traces. On the moraines of the
earlier Glacial Period we find the strata of the Interglacial Period
deposited, and on the later moraines of the second (last) Glacial
Period lie the remains of the post-Glacial Period, in the course of
which a continual increase in the yearly temperature--probably only
a few degrees of the thermometer--caused the glaciers to melt and
retreat, and opened the way for the return of plants and animals to
what had been deserts of snow and ice. The place formerly occupied by
the Interglacial and Glacial fauna is then taken by the post-Glacial
fauna, which proves considerably different.
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