'Tis time for me to go!
Northward o'er the icy rocks,
Northward o'er the Sea."
—Leland.
THE WINTER THAT LASTED ALL SUMMER
It's been just one thing after another with the world and me ever since we were born. First it was the fire, then it was the flood, and then it was the winter that lasted all summer.
Just what started it nobody knows to this day. Some of the theories have been that this particular winter stayed so long because the earth wavered on its axis, or that it flew the track for a while and got too far away from the sun. From our present knowledge of the machinery of the heavens it is certain that the earth's motions could not vary to this extent. One theory that appeals to many scientists to-day is that when so much of the carbon in the air went into the making of our coal beds the earth became unusually cold, and so snows of each successive winter kept piling up instead of melting away during the spring and summer. When there is plenty of this gas in the air the earth's heat does not escape so fast. But with the great amount of carbon taken up in the growth of the vast forests that were made into coal, Mother Earth's air blanket grew thinner, so to speak, hence the long, cold spell.
From Norton's "Elements of Geology." By permission of Ginn and Company
WHEN THE ICE SHEETS COVERED THE LAND