CHAPTER IV.
PRE-GLACIAL EPOCHS.
The age immediately preceding the glacial, and consequently the post-tertiary, is known as the pliocene epoch, the last of the tertiary.
The tertiary period began with the close of the cretaceous. A map of the early tertiary period would represent parts of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, the whole of Florida, the lower parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, the whole of Louisiana, and the adjoining territory on both sides of the Mississippi, as far as Cairo, as covered with water. Also a great sea extending through Nebraska and the western part of Dacotah, and taking a north-westerly course until it emptied into the Pacific. In Europe, the great basin of Paris (excepting a zone of chalk), the greater part of Spain and Italy, the whole of Belgium, Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, Hungary, Wallachia, and northern Russia, as one vast sheet of water. England and France were connected by a band of rocks.
About the middle of the tertiary, a tropical climate and tropical fauna and flora spread over the whole of Europe. Palms, cedars, laurels, and cinnamon trees flourished in the valleys of Switzerland, and more than thirty different species of oak adorned the forests of that time.
In Europe, in the eocene, there have been found thirty species of crocodiles; many species of snakes, one twenty feet long; a dozen species of birds; tapirs (Palæothere and Lophiodon), two species of hogs, some ruminants and rodents.
In the miocene, among Pachyderms may be mentioned the mastodon, elephant, dinothere (an elephantine animal), rhinoceros, hog, horse, tapir, and hippopotamus; among Carnivores, the machairodus, hyena, lion, and dog; among Ruminants, the camel, deer, and antelope. There were monkeys, and many other animals.
In the pliocene, besides those enumerated, are found the bear, hare, and other animals.