Still, we are in many cases able to draw completely reliable conclusions as to the climate of a given geological period, by an examination of the fossils belonging to that period.  Among the more striking examples of how the past climate of a region may be deduced from the study of the organic remains contained in its rocks, the following may be mentioned:  It has been shown that in Eocene times, or at the commencement of the Tertiary period, the climate of what is now Western Europe was of a tropical or sub-tropical character.  Thus the Eocene beds are found to contain the remains of shells such as now inhabit tropical seas, as, for example, Cowries and Volutes; and with these are the fruits of palms, and the remains of other tropical plants.  It has been shown, again, that in Miocene times, or about the middle of the Tertiary period, Central Europe was peopled with a luxuriant flora resembling that of the warmer parts of the United States, and leading to the conclusion that the mean annual temperature must have been at least 30 deg. hotter than it is at present.  It has been shown that, at the same time, Greenland, now buried beneath a vast ice-shroud, was warm enough to support a large number of trees, shrubs, and other plants, such as inhabit temperate regions of the globe.  Lastly, it has been shown upon physical as well as palaeontological evidence, that the greater part of the North Temperate Zone, at a comparatively recent geological period, has been visited with all the rigours of an Arctic climate, resembling that of Greenland at the present day.  This is indicated by the occurrence of Arctic shells in the superficial deposits of this period, whilst the Musk-ox and the Reindeer roamed far south of their present limits.

Lastly, it was from the study of fossils that geologists learnt originally to comprehend a fact which may be regarded as of cardinal importance in all modern geological theories and speculations—­namely, that the crust of the earth is liable to local elevations and subsidences.  For long after the remains of shells and other marine animals were for the first time observed in the solid rocks forming the dry land, and at great heights above the sea-level, attempts were made to explain this almost unintelligible phenomenon upon the hypothesis that the fossils in question were not really the objects they represented, but were in truth mere lusus naturoe, due to some “plastic virtue latent in the earth.”  The common-sense of scientific men, however, soon rejected this idea, and it was agreed by universal consent that these bodies really were remains of animals which formerly lived in the sea.  When once this was admitted, the further steps were comparatively easy, and at the present day no geological doctrine stands on a firmer basis than that which teaches us that our present continents and islands, fixed and immovable as they appear, have been repeatedly sunk beneath the ocean.

CHAPTER VI.