A History of Science-3 [65]
knows just when--there came fishes of many strange forms, some of the early ones enclosed in turtle-like shells. Later yet, large spaces within the interior sea having risen to the surface, great marshes or forests of strange types of vegetation grew and deposited their remains to form coal-beds. Many times over such forests were formed, only to be destroyed by the oscillations of the land surface. All told, the strata of this Paleozoic period aggregate several miles in thickness, and the time consumed in their formation stands to all later time up to the present, according to Professor Dana's estimate, as three to one.
Towards the close of this Paleozoic era the Appalachian Mountains were slowly upheaved in great convoluted folds, some of them probably reaching three or four miles above the sea-level, though the tooth of time has since gnawed them down to comparatively puny limits. The continental areas thus enlarged were peopled during the ensuing Mesozoic time with multitudes of strange reptiles, many of them gigantic in size. The waters, too, still teeming with invertebrates and fishes, had their quota of reptilian monsters; and in the air were flying reptiles, some of which measured twenty- five feet from tip to tip of their batlike wings. During this era the Sierra Nevada Mountains rose. Near the eastern border of the forming continent the strata were perhaps now too thick and stiff to bend into mountain folds, for they were rent into great fissures, letting out floods of molten lava, remnants of which are still in evidence after ages of denudation, as the Palisades along the Hudson, and such elevations as Mount Holyoke in western Massachusetts.
Still there remained a vast interior sea, which later on, in the tertiary age, was to be divided by the slow uprising of the land, which only yesterday--that is to say, a million, or three or five or ten million, years ago-- became the Rocky Mountains. High and erect these young mountains stand to this day, their sharp angles and rocky contours vouching for their youth, in strange contrast with the shrunken forms of the old Adirondacks, Green Mountains, and Appalachians, whose lowered heads and rounded shoulders attest the weight of ages. In the vast lakes which still remained on either side of the Rocky range, tertiary strata were slowly formed to the ultimate depth of two or three miles, enclosing here and there those vertebrate remains which were to be exposed again to view by denudation when the land rose still higher, and then, in our own time, to tell so wonderful a story to the paleontologist.
Finally, the interior seas were filled, and the shore lines of the continent assumed nearly their present outline.
Then came the long winter of the glacial epoch--perhaps of a succession of glacial epochs. The ice sheet extended southward to about the fortieth parallel, driving some animals before it, and destroying those that were unable to migrate. At its fulness, the great ice mass lay almost a mile in depth over New England, as attested by the scratched and polished rock surfaces and deposited erratics in the White Mountains. Such a mass presses down with a weight of about one hundred and twenty-five tons to the square foot, according to Dr. Croll's estimate. It crushed and ground everything beneath it more or less, and in some regions planed off hilly surfaces into prairies. Creeping slowly forward, it carried all manner of debris with it. When it melted away its terminal moraine built up the nucleus of the land masses now known as Long Island and Staten Island; other of its deposits formed the "drumlins" about Boston famous as Bunker and Breed's hills; and it left a long, irregular line of ridges of "till" or bowlder clay and scattered erratics clear across the country at about the latitude of New York city.
As the ice sheet slowly receded it left minor moraines all along its course. Sometimes its deposits dammed up river courses or inequalities in the surface, to form the lakes which everywhere abound over Northern territories. Some glacialists even hold the
Towards the close of this Paleozoic era the Appalachian Mountains were slowly upheaved in great convoluted folds, some of them probably reaching three or four miles above the sea-level, though the tooth of time has since gnawed them down to comparatively puny limits. The continental areas thus enlarged were peopled during the ensuing Mesozoic time with multitudes of strange reptiles, many of them gigantic in size. The waters, too, still teeming with invertebrates and fishes, had their quota of reptilian monsters; and in the air were flying reptiles, some of which measured twenty- five feet from tip to tip of their batlike wings. During this era the Sierra Nevada Mountains rose. Near the eastern border of the forming continent the strata were perhaps now too thick and stiff to bend into mountain folds, for they were rent into great fissures, letting out floods of molten lava, remnants of which are still in evidence after ages of denudation, as the Palisades along the Hudson, and such elevations as Mount Holyoke in western Massachusetts.
Still there remained a vast interior sea, which later on, in the tertiary age, was to be divided by the slow uprising of the land, which only yesterday--that is to say, a million, or three or five or ten million, years ago-- became the Rocky Mountains. High and erect these young mountains stand to this day, their sharp angles and rocky contours vouching for their youth, in strange contrast with the shrunken forms of the old Adirondacks, Green Mountains, and Appalachians, whose lowered heads and rounded shoulders attest the weight of ages. In the vast lakes which still remained on either side of the Rocky range, tertiary strata were slowly formed to the ultimate depth of two or three miles, enclosing here and there those vertebrate remains which were to be exposed again to view by denudation when the land rose still higher, and then, in our own time, to tell so wonderful a story to the paleontologist.
Finally, the interior seas were filled, and the shore lines of the continent assumed nearly their present outline.
Then came the long winter of the glacial epoch--perhaps of a succession of glacial epochs. The ice sheet extended southward to about the fortieth parallel, driving some animals before it, and destroying those that were unable to migrate. At its fulness, the great ice mass lay almost a mile in depth over New England, as attested by the scratched and polished rock surfaces and deposited erratics in the White Mountains. Such a mass presses down with a weight of about one hundred and twenty-five tons to the square foot, according to Dr. Croll's estimate. It crushed and ground everything beneath it more or less, and in some regions planed off hilly surfaces into prairies. Creeping slowly forward, it carried all manner of debris with it. When it melted away its terminal moraine built up the nucleus of the land masses now known as Long Island and Staten Island; other of its deposits formed the "drumlins" about Boston famous as Bunker and Breed's hills; and it left a long, irregular line of ridges of "till" or bowlder clay and scattered erratics clear across the country at about the latitude of New York city.
As the ice sheet slowly receded it left minor moraines all along its course. Sometimes its deposits dammed up river courses or inequalities in the surface, to form the lakes which everywhere abound over Northern territories. Some glacialists even hold the