. The continent we live on. Physical geography; Natural history. bfllios at ihf liino nf their di-ath this m what is now a inort- or less foodless wildcrnoss. You just cannot support such herds of huge animals, needing literally tons of fresh food and roughage daily simply to maintain themselves, on (he present meager tundra vegetation—which, incidentally, is available for only a few weeks every year. When you add all the other creatures mentioned above (and the volume of their remains shows that they existed by the tens of thousands), the whole matter verges on the incomprehensible. Thus, it
. The continent we live on. Physical geography; Natural history. bfllios at ihf liino nf their di-ath this m what is now a inort- or less foodless wildcrnoss. You just cannot support such herds of huge animals, needing literally tons of fresh food and roughage daily simply to maintain themselves, on (he present meager tundra vegetation—which, incidentally, is available for only a few weeks every year. When you add all the other creatures mentioned above (and the volume of their remains shows that they existed by the tens of thousands), the whole matter verges on the incomprehensible. Thus, it seems that, while the center and northeast of our continent were lying under the grip of an icecap, this today slightly more northern land was somewhere farther south, down in the sun. bathed in a much longer day than now. and so able to grow abundant food for vast herds of large animals and to support deciduous trees bearing soft fruits. This seems to be a logical conclusion. How. why. and when did all these animals that we now find in the muck get killed; and so suddenly that their bodies did not have time to rot or even start to decay in some instances: indeed so abruptly in one case that flowering buttercups they were feeding on when death struck, were found still lodged un- swallowed between their teeth? This is truly a conundrum, but there is another one even more inexplicable. How did they get instantly deep-frozen, a state which, according to frozen-food specialists, requires an enormous and almost instantaneous drop in temperature? And how. beyond this, did so many of them get torn limb from limb? What natural force is strong enough to fear the whole head off an elephant in a fresh condition and hurl it into a mass of smashed tree trunks, bits of other animals, boulders, and sludge, and then freeze the whole mass so suddenly and deeply that it has remained unspoiled for thou- sands or tens of thousands of years? But not all these heaps of animal flesh and particulate
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