CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| Preface | [5] | |
| Introduction | [11] | |
| I. | Factors of Climate and the Causes of Climatic Fluctuations | [15] |
| II. | The Climatic Record as a Whole | [32] |
| III. | Conditions before the Quaternary Ice Age | [42] |
| IV. | The Great Ice Age | [47] |
| V. | The Glacial History of Northern and Central Europe | [55] |
| VI. | The Mediterranean Regions during the Glacial Period | [68] |
| VII. | Asia during the Glacial Period | [76] |
| VIII. | The Glacial History of North America | [86] |
| IX. | Central and South America | [97] |
| X. | Africa | [103] |
| XI. | Australia and New Zealand | [109] |
| XII. | The Glaciation of Antarctica | [114] |
| XIII. | The Close of the Ice Age—The Continental Phase | [118] |
| XIV. | The Post-Glacial Optimum of Climate | [127] |
| XV. | The Forest Period of Western Europe | [136] |
| XVI. | The “Classical” Rainfall Maximum, 1800 b.c. to a.d. 500 | [140] |
| XVII. | The Climatic Fluctuations since a.d. 500 | [149] |
| XVIII. | Climatic Fluctuations and the Evolution of Man | [159] |
| XIX. | Climate and History | [162] |
| Appendix—The Factors of Temperature | [166] | |
| Index | [169] |
INTRODUCTION
The following study is an attempt to reconstruct in some detail the sequence of climatic changes through which the world passed during that important stage of its geological history which is variously known as the Ice Age or Glacial Period, the Pleistocene, the Quaternary, or the Human Period. That time saw the growth of humanity from a primitive stage but little removed from the higher animals to the beginnings of a complicated civilization, and it saw that human life spread from its cradle or cradles to the ends of the earth; it saw the configuration of the globe passing through a series of modifications which ended by establishing the physical geography of the present day. Finally, it saw a series of startling changes of climate which almost merit the term “Revolutions” of the old catastrophic geologists, at the conclusion of which we can trace the gradual development of the climatic conditions of the present day. In short, it is a period of immense interest which has a personal application lacking in the remoter parts of geological time, and for that reason it is worthy of the fullest study.
On the geological side the literature of the Ice Age is immense, and is beyond the power of any one man to master. Volumes might be, and not infrequently have been, written on the glacial geology of areas limited to a few square miles, or even on the deposits of a single section. On the archæological side the literature is not yet so voluminous, but is technical and conflicting in a high degree. It is only when we seek the contributions of competent meteorologists that we find a serious gap in the literature. Nor is this surprising, for meteorologists are still so much occupied with the present vagaries of the weather, that few of them have time to extend their researches into the geological past. Yet this is eminently a case where the past is the key to the present, and it may be that the solution of many problems which meteorologists have hitherto faced in vain will yet be suggested by studies of the climatic changes of the Ice Age.
The writer’s excuse for setting down his views is that he is intensely interested in all three sciences—geology, anthropology, and meteorology. The combination of these three subjects naturally ended in specialization on their common meeting place, and led him to hope that he could assist his fellow geologists and anthropologists by acquainting them with some of the bearings of meteorology on their subject, and could open out to his fellow meteorologists a fascinating branch of their science.
The Quaternary, however, was not the only geological period to exhibit the phenomena of an Ice Age, and in order that we may more fully understand the status of the Quaternary Ice Age in the long succession of geological climates, and also to avoid the charge of presenting part of the evidence only, a brief discussion of the climates of the earlier periods has been attempted. The plan of the work is as follows: [Chapter I] deals generally with the causes of climatic fluctuations and with the meteorology of an Ice Age. [Chapter II] gives a brief account of the climatic record as a whole, and [Chapter III] deals with the Tertiary period considered as leading up to the Quaternary Ice Age. Chapter IV discusses the subdivisions of the Glacial period, and the conflict between advocates of one and of repeated glaciations. [Chapters V] to XII give brief accounts, from the standpoint of a meteorologist, of the glacial history of Northern Europe, the Mediterranean Region, Asia, North and South America, Africa, Australia, and the South Polar regions. In [Chapters XIII] to XV post-Glacial climatology is considered. [Chapters XVI] and XVII deal with the major climatic fluctuations of the “historic” period, and finally, in [Chapters XVIII] and XIX, is a short discussion of the influence of climate on the evolution and history of man. A brief bibliography concludes each chapter.
THE EVOLUTION OF CLIMATE