away time. The geographical features must have been widely
different from the present.

In the first place, the elevation of land to the north must have
been sufficient to have connected the land areas of the Northern
Hemisphere--North America, with Asia<27> and Greenland; and this
latter country must have been united with Iceland, and, through
the British Islands, with Europe. But, to compensate for this
land mass to the north, large portions of Central and Southern
Europe were beneath the waves.<28> The proof of this extended
mass of land is to be found in the wide distribution of similar
animals and plants in the Miocene time. All the chief botanists
are agreed that the north Polar region was the center from which
plants peculiar to the Eocene and Miocene epochs spread into
both Europe and America.<29> We may mention that the famous big
trees of California are simply remnants of a wide-spread growth
of these trees in Miocene times. They can be found in a fossil
state at various places in British America, in Greenland, and in
Europe. They are supposed to have originated somewhere in the
north, and spread by these land connections we have mentioned
into both Europe and America. But this is not the only tree that
grew in the Miocene forests of both continents. The magnolia,
tulip-tree, and swamp cypress are other instances.<30>
Eleven species, growing in the Rocky Mountain regions in Rocene
times, found their way to Europe in the Miocene times,<31>
driving before them the plants of a tropical growth that had
hitherto flourished in England. Now this implies land connection
between the two continents. Furthermore, animals both large and
small are found common to the two countries.<32> The climate
over what is now the North Temperate Zone, and even further.