This
conclusion is irresistible. If the cold of the north caused the ice,
and the ice caused the Drift, then in all the cold north-lands there
must have been ice, and consequently there ought to have been Drift.
If we can find, therefore, any extensive cold region of the earth
where the Drift is not, then we can not escape the conclusion that
the cold and the ice did not make the Drift.
Let us see: One of the coldest regions of the earth is Siberia. It is
a vast tract reaching to the Arctic Circle; it is the north part of
the Continent of Asia; it is intersected by great mountain-ranges.
Here, if anywhere, we should find the Drift; here, if anywhere, was
the ice-field, "the sea of ice." It is more elevated and more
mountainous than the interior of North America where the
drift-deposits are extensive; it is nearer the pole than New York and
Illinois, covered as these are with hundreds of feet of _d?bris_, and
yet _there is no Drift in Siberia!_
I quote from a high authority, and a firm believer in the theory that
glaciers or ice-sheets caused the drift; James Geikie says:
"It is remarkable that _nowhere in the great plains of Siberia do any
traces of glacial action appear to have_
{p.
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