375. We have made the acquaintance of the Reeks of Magillicuddy as the great condensers of Atlantic vapour. At the time now referred to, this moisture did not fall as soft and fructifying rain, but as snow, which formed the nutriment of great glaciers. A chain of lakes now constitutes the chief attraction of Killarney, the Lower, the Middle, and the Upper Lake. Let us suppose ourselves rowing towards the head of the Upper Lake with the Purple Mountain to our left. Remembering our travels in the Alps, you would infallibly call my attention to the planing of the rocks, and declare the action to be unmistakably that of glaciers. With our attention thus sharpened, we land at the head of the lake, and walk up the Black Valley to the base of Magillicuddy's Reeks. Your conclusion would be, that this valley tells a tale as wonderful as that of Hasli. 376. We reach our boat and row homewards along the Upper Lake. Its islands now possess a new interest for us. Some of them are bare, others are covered wholly or in part with luxuriant vegetation; but both the naked and clothed islands are glaciated. The weathering of ages has not altered their forms: there are the Cannon Rock, the Giant's Coffin, the Man of War, all sculptured as if the chisel had passed over them in our own lifetime. These lakes, now fringed with tender woodland beauty, were all occupied by the ancient ice. It has disappeared, and seeds from other regions have been wafted thither to sow the trees, the shrubs, the ferns, and the grasses which now beautify Killarney. Man himself, they say, has made his appearance in the world since that time of ice; but of the real period and manner of man's introduction little is professed to be known since, to make them square with science, new meanings have been found for the beautiful myths and stories of the Bible. 377. It is the nature and tendency of the human mind to look backward and forward; to endeavour to restore the past and predict the future. Thus endowed, from data patiently and painfully won, we recover in idea a state of things which existed thousands, it may be millions, of years before the history of the human race began. § 56. _The Glacial Epoch._ 378. This period of ice-extension has been named the _Glacial Epoch_. In accounting for it great minds have fallen into grave errors, as we shall presently see. 379. The substance on which we have thus far been working exists in three different states: as a solid in ice; as a liquid in water; as a gas in vapour. To cause it to pass from one of these states to the next following one, _heat_ is necessary. 380. Dig a hole in the ice of the Mer de Glace in summer, and place a thermometer in the hole; it will stand at 32° Fahr. Dip your thermometer into one of the glacier streams; it will still mark 32°. _The water is therefore as cold as ice._