In still another direction does the deluge story connect itself with physical probabilities. If we examine the Atlantic map representing the soundings of the Challenger expedition, we shall find evidence not only of that extension of land in temperate Western Europe which may have originated the story of Atlantis, but other dispositions of land, especially in the extreme north and south, which may have influenced antediluvian climate. We have reason to believe that in the second continental period, that of palæocosmic man, Baffin's Bay may have been greatly narrowed and Behring's Straits entirely closed, while large tracts of land existed around Iceland and west of Norway. There would thus be almost continuous land connection around the north pole, permitting easy extension of man and of hardy animals. There would also be much less access of ice to the North Atlantic. At the same time in another region there was probably a land connection from Florida to South America by the Bahamas, and the equatorial current may have been more powerfully deflected northward than now. The effect would be to produce around the North Atlantic, and especially on the eastern side, a golden age of genial climate, fitted to early man, but destined as time went on and geographical changes proceeded, preparatory to the great diluvial subsidence, to fade away into the cool and damp climate of the later post-glacial or antediluvian period. This again would lead to migrations, wars, and fierce struggles for existence among the human populations--a time of anarchy and violence preceding the final catastrophe. Much collateral evidence in substantiation of these probabilities can be collected from the distribution of marine life[60] and the changes of level, even on the American coast. They conjure up before us strange visions of the prehistoric past, and of the vicissitudes of which man himself has been witness, and of which, whether through memory and tradition or the revelation of God, he has continued to retain some written records which, long dim and uncertain, are now beginning to be put into relation with physical facts ascertained by modern scientific observation. [60] See _The Ice Age in Canada_, by the author. Montreal: 1893.