One need not ask why the regions of London and Paris
fostered palms and magnolias and turtles in Tertiary times, and
shudder in their dreary winter to-day.
The Tertiary Era is divided by geologists into four periods: the
Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. "Cene" is our barbaric
way of expressing the Greek word for "new," and the
classification is meant to mark the increase of new (or modern
and actual) types of life in the course of the Tertiary Era. Many
geologists, however, distrust the classification, and are
disposed to divide the Tertiary into two periods. From our point
of view, at least, it is advisable to do this. The first and
longer half of the Tertiary is the period in which the
temperature rises until Central Europe enjoys the climate of
South Africa; the second half is the period in which the land
gradually rises, and the temperature falls, until glaciers and
sheets of ice cover regions where the palm and fig had
flourished.
The rise of the land had begun in the first half of the Tertiary,
but had been suspended. The Pyrenees and Apennines had begun to
rise at the end of the Eocene, straining the crust until it
spluttered with volcanoes, casting the nummulitic sea off large
areas of Southern Europe.
Pages:
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351