CHAPTER VI

Summary

That the climate of the northern hemisphere has undergone an important change, and that its mean annual temperature must once have resembled that now experienced within the tropics, was the opinion of some of the first naturalists who investigated the contents of ancient strata. Their conjecture became more probable when the shells and corals of the secondary rocks were more carefully examined, for these organic remains were found to be intimately connected by generic affinity with species now living in warmer latitudes. At a later period, many reptiles, such as turtles, tortoises, and large saurian animals, were discovered in the European strata in great abundance; and they supplied new and powerful arguments, from analogy, in support of the doctrine, that the heat of the climate had been great when our secondary formations were deposited. Lastly, when the botanist turned his attention to the specific determination of fossil plants, the evidence acquired the fullest confirmation, for the flora of a country is peculiarly influenced by temperature; and the ancient vegetation of the earth might, more readily than the forms of animals, have afforded conflicting proofs, had the popular theory been without foundation. When the examination of animal and vegetable remains was extended to rocks in the most northern parts of Europe and North America, and even to the Arctic regions, indications of the same revolution in climate were discovered.