to bring about that other change of climate, under the influence of
which, slowly and imperceptibly, this immense sheet of frost melted
away from the lowlands and retired to the mountain recesses. We must
allow that long ages elapsed before the warmth became such as to
induce plants and animals to clothe and people the land. How vast a
time, also, must have passed away ere the warmth reached its
climax!"[2]

[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 100.

2. "The Great Ice Age," p. 184.]

{p. 220}

And all this time the rain fell. There could be no return of the sun
until all the mass of moisture sucked up by the comet's heat had been
condensed into water, and falling on the earth had found its way back
to the ocean; and this process had to be repeated many times. It was
the age of the great primeval rain.

###

THE PRIMEVAL STORM.

In the Andes, Humboldt tells us of a somewhat similar state of facts:

"A thick mist during a particular season obscures the firmament for
many months. Not a planet, not the most brilliant stars of the
southern hemisphere--Canopus, the