The pre-glacial world was a garden, a paradise; not excessively warm at the equator, and yet with so mild and equable a climate that the plants we now call tropical flourished within the present Arctic Circle.  If some future daring navigator reaches the north pole and finds solid land there, he will probably discover in the rocks at his feet the fossil remains of the oranges and bananas of the pre-glacial age.

That the reader may not think this an extravagant statement, let me cite a few authorities.

A recent writer says: 

“This was, indeed, for America, the golden age of animals and plants, and in all respects but one—­the absence of man—­the country was more interesting and picturesque than now.  We must imagine, therefore, that the hills and valleys about the present site of New York were covered with noble trees, and a dense undergrowth of species, for the most part different from those now living there; and that these were the homes and feeding-grounds of many kinds of quadrupeds and birds, which have long since become extinct.  The broad plain which sloped gently seaward from the highlands must have been

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covered with a sub-tropical forest of-giant trees and tangled vines teeming with animal life.  This state of things doubtless continued through many thousands of years, but ultimately a change came over the fair face of Nature more complete and terrible than we have language to describe."[1]

Another says: 

“At the close of the Tertiary age, which ends the long series of geological epochs previous to the Quaternary, the landscape of Europe had, in the main, assumed its modern appearance.  The middle era of this age—­the Miocene—­was characterized by tropical plants, a varied and imposing fauna, and a genial climate, so extended as to nourish forests of beeches, maples, walnuts, poplars, and magnolias in Greenland and Spitzbergen, while an exotic vegetation hid the exuberant valleys of England."[2]

Dr. Dawson says: 

“This delightful climate was not confined to the present temperate or tropical regions.  It extended to the very shores of the Arctic Sea.  In North Greenland, at Atane-Kerdluk, in latitude 70° north, at an elevation of more than a thousand feet above the sea, were found the remains of beeches, oaks, pines, poplars, maples, walnuts, magnolias, limes, and vines.  The remains of similar plants were found in Spitzbergen, in latitude 78° 56’."[3]

Dr. Dawson continues: 

“Was the Miocene period on the whole a better age of the world than that in which we live?  In some respects it was.  Obviously, there was in the northern hemisphere a vast surface of land under a mild and equable climate, and clothed with a rich and varied vegetation.  Had we lived in the Miocene we might have sat under our own vine and fig-tree equally in Greenland and Spitzbergen and in those more southern climes to which this