Such being the constitution of Alpine plants, how could they possibly have originated during the Glacial period and wandered from the mountains into the plains, across numbers of formidable barriers, often exposed to icy winds, for thousands of miles? As a matter of fact, Alpine plants have survived in the high North and in the Alps because they are there permanently 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° 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 moutonnées_ 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 northern Europe under such conditions, as there were no areas free from ice. A more vivid idea of the state of Europe during the epoch of