The Great Ice-Age

Abstract

MR. GREEN, reviewing Mr. J. Geikie's work on the “Great Ice-Age” (NATURE, vol. ix. p. 318), expresses the opinion that a glacial period must have been one of intense cold. This is the general opinion, and yet I think it can be shown to rest on a misconception. If the climate at any given elevation is cold enough to form glaciers, no decrease of the winter temperature will increase their magnitude; while on the other hand a low summer temperature is shown by the facts of physical geography to be eminently favourable to glaciation. This last may almost be called an identical proposition, for permanent snow means snow which lasts through the summer.