New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-31
Great Changes in Climate.

There can be no doubt that the climate OF
this Northern hemisphere has changed enor-
mously more than once. There can be no
doubt that the distribution of land and water,
the shape and size of its continents and seas,
have changed again and again. There can
be no doubt that, for instance, long before
the age of ice, the whole North of Europe was
much warmer than it is now. Take Green
land, for instance. Disco Island lies in Baf-
fms Bay, off the west coast Of Greenland, in
latitude 100, far within the Arctic circle. Now
there certain strata ofrock older than the ice,
have not been destroyed by the grinding of
the ice-cap; and they are full of fossil plants.
But of what kind of plants? Of the same
families as now grow in the warmer parts OF
the United States. Even a tulip-tree has
been found among them. Now how is this
to be explained? Either we must say that
the climate of Greenland was then so much
warmer than now that it had summers proba-
bly, as hot as those of New York or we must
say that these leaves and stones were tloated
thither from the United States. But if we
say the latter, we must allow change in the
shape of the land, which is enormous. For
nothing now can float northward from the
United States into Baffin's Bay. The polar
current sets out of Batlin's Bay southwark,
bringing icebergs down, not leaves up,
through Davis Straits. And in any case we
must allow that the hills of Disco Island
were then the bottom Of sea or how would
the leaves have been deposited in them at
all? So much for the change of climate and
land which can be proved to have gone on in
Greenland. 1t has become colder. Why
should it not some day become warmer
again? Now for England. 1t can be proved,
as far as common sense can prove anything,
hot Enn Il fho nf 90
warmer than it is now, and grew gradually
cooler and cooler, just as, while the age of ice
was dying out, 1t grew warmer again. Now,
what proof is there Of that. This. Under
meath London-as, 1 dare say, many Of you
knOw-there lies four or five hundred feet of
clay. But not ice-clay. Anything but that,
as you will see. 1t belongs to formation
late, (geologically speaking,) but somewhat
older than those Disco Island beds. And
what sort of fossils do we find in it? In the
first place, the shells, which are abundant,
are tropical-Nautilii, Cones, and such like.
And more, fruits and seeds are found in it.,
especially at the Isle of Sheppey. And what
are they? Fruits of Nipa palms, a form only
found now at river-mouths in Eastern India
and the Indian islands Anona seed, gOurd
seeds, and Protaceous plants too, of an Aus
tralian type. Surely your common sense
Woulu HluI w yOu IuaG IiilS Loiuou clay HluoC
be mud land down off the mouth Of tropical
river. But your common sense would be all
but certain Of that, when you found, as you
would find, the teeth and bones of crocodiles
and turtles, who come to land, remember, to
lay their eggs; the bones, too, of large man.
mails, allied to the tapir of India and South
America, and the water-hog Of the Cape.
If all this does not mean that there was once
tropic climate and tropic river running
into some sea or other where London now
stands, must give up common sense and
reason as deceitful and useless faculties, and
believe nothing, not even the evidence ofmy
own senses.-From Toaon Geology, by Rec.
Canon Kingsley.