Jacqueline Jarratt, age 12, of Readyville, Tenn., for her question:

 Did the Ice Age glaciers cover the whole world?

There have been several Ice Ages during the long history of the earth. For world wide climate tends to go through changes. At times it has been warm enough for magnolias to bloom in Alaska. At times it has peen too cool for summer to melt the winter snows. During these long, cool periods the glaciers spread down from the polar regions.

These cool periods of growing glaciers were the Ice Ages. The ice fields spread over Canada and then crept down over the northern boundaries of what is now the United States. New England, the Great Lakes and part of the northwestern states were covered. During one Ice Age the glaciers reached down into Kansas. But Texas, Florida and the Southland were never covered with ice.

In Europe the glaciers have covered Scandinavia, Northern Germany and most of the British Isles. At most, some 12 million square miles of land were covered by glacial ice. This is only about one fifth of the total land area of the earth.