Thus there is nothing against the notion that the first human families might soon have been separated, and lived under very different conditions of climate, in regions far apart from each other. But it is not necessary, even under present circumstances, for the places to be far apart, in order to ensure a variation in the temperature, and in the local conditions resulting from it. In mountainous countries like Switzerland, the distance of a few miles makes such a difference in the soil and atmosphere, that we find the flora of Lapland and Southern Italy practically side by side; similarly in Isola Madre, on Lago Maggiore, oranges, great cacti, and dwarf palms grow in the open, in full view of the Simplon. We need not confine ourselves to mountains; the temperature of Normandy is lower than that of Jersey, while in the narrow triangle formed by the Western coasts of France, the vegetation is of the most varied character.[92] The contrasts must have been tremendous, even over the smallest areas, in the days that followed the first appearance of our species on the globe. The selfsame place might easily become the theatre of vast atmospheric revolutions, when the sea retreated or advanced by the inundation or drying up of the neighbouring regions; when mountains suddenly rose in enormous masses, or sank to the common level of the earth, so that the plains covered what once was their crests; and when tremors, that shook the axis of the earth, and by affecting its equilibrium and the inclination of the poles to the ecliptic, came to disturb the general economy of the planet. We may now consider that we have met all the objections, that might be urged as to the difficulty of changing one’s place and climate in the early ages of the world. There is no reason why some groups of the human family should not have gone far afield, while others were huddled together in a limited area and yet were exposed to very varied influences. It is thus that the secondary types, from which are descended the existing races, could have come into being. As to the type of man first created, the Adamite, we will leave him out of the argument altogether; for it is impossible to know anything of his specific character, or how far each of the later families has kept or lost its likeness to him. Our investigation will not take us further back than the races of the second stage.