वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

24 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. a period of glaciation was marked by elevation, extreme cold and the invasion of the ice-caps over regions of the present Temperate zone; while an inter-glacial period was accompanied by depression of land and milder and congenial climate which made even the Arctic regions habitable. The remains of the Palæolithic man have been found often imbedded between the two boulder-clays of two different Glacial periods, a fact which conclusively estab- lishes the existence of man in the Inter-Glacial period in the Quaternary era. Prof. Geikie speaking of the changes of climate in the Glacial and Inter-Glacial period remarks that "during the Inter-Glacial period the climate was characterised by clement winters and cool summers so that the tropical plants and animals, like elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses, ranged over the whole of the Arctic region, and in spite of numerous fierce carni- vora, the Palæolithic man had no unpleasant habitation there."* It will thus be seen that in point of climate the Pleistocene period, or the early Quaternary era, was intermediate between the early geological ages when uniform genial climate prevailed over the globe, and the modern period when it is differentiated into zones. It was, so to speak, a transitional period marked by violent changes in the climate, that was mild and genial in the Inter-Glacial, and severe and inclement during the Glacial period. It was at the beginning of the Post-Glacial or the Recent period that modern climatic conditions were established. Prof. Geikie is, however, of opinion that even the beginning of the Post-Glacial period was marked, at least in North-Western Europe, by two alternations of genial and rainy-cold climate before the present climatic condi- tions became established.† But though the fact of the Ice Age and the existence of a milder climate within the Arctic regions in the Inter-Glacial Fragments of Earth Lore, p. 266. † Prehistoric Europe, p. 530.