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_On the Glacial Period and the Earth-Movement Hypothesis._ By
=James Geikie=, Edinburgh, Scotland. (Read before the Victoria
Institute, London).
Geologists generally admit that there have been at least two glacial
epochs, separated by one well-marked interglacial period. The closing
stage of the Pleistocene period was one of cold conditions in
northwestern Europe, accompanied by land depressions. After this came a
genial climate with a union of the British islands among themselves and
also with the continent. This was followed by a cold, humid condition.
Upham maintains that the whole of North America north of the Gulf of
Mexico stood at least three thousand feet higher at the beginning of
the glacial epoch than at present. Fiords were formed before glacial
times and so can not be cited as evidence of high land during the
glacial period. An elevation of land in the northern part of North
America and Europe could not produce glaciation in their southern
parts. The deflection of the Gulf Stream by the sinking of the Panama,
Professor Geikie argues, could not produce the conditions which
prevailed during the glacial epoch. The Earth-Movement hypothesis, he
believes, accounts neither for the widespread phenomena of the ice-age,
nor for the remarkable interglacial climates. Some maintain that the
warm interglacial period was produced by the rise of the Panama land,
the sinking of the lands to the north, and the turning of the Gulf
Stream from the Pacific into the Atlantic. Why then, asks Professor
Geikie, do we not have such a climate now?