Year after year, century after century, the sun
gained .slowly upon these frozen mourrtains:
the waters released from them by the gradual
thaw ran down to rejoin the ocean. As the
vast cap of ice was reduced in size the melting
waters moved southward, a gradual change
in the earth’s center of gravity oc
curred. It moved slowly towar<l the south,
diawing after it the mass of waters and laying
bare a part of the continent of the northern
hemisphere. The seas gradually retreated
from one hemisphere and gradually took pos-
I session of another. In this slow movement
' there was nothing of the nature of a catastro
phe or grand convulsion. Each of the <uih s
poles was loaded with vast serried mountains
<d ice, but of unequal dimension.-, and the
slow current of the melting mass flowing
southward produced only gentle < hanges in
the physical condition of the earth. After the
lapse of seven thousand years, however, the
sun’s heat had sufficientl.y softened the north
polar ice to permit of its cutin* disruption. A
grand brake-up occurred. The northern seasand
the fragments of the ice mountains, obeying
the attraction of gravity, rushed in a body to
ward the south. Torn from his bed. the ocean
< arried with him his mud, with which the
diluvium of the northern hemisphere was
formed. Gigan.tic torrents, mingled with earth,
sand ami pebbles, dej.-osited the alluviums of
the great valleys. The erratic bowlders tloat
ing upon the fragments of ice, or hurled south
ward by the main force of the <hdug<*. were
strewed over tho plains or heaped upon the
mountain-sides of northern Europe and
America, The animals that the growing of the
north had permitted to wander into regions
m at the pole were overwhelmed by the waters.
