lion) have been found in neolithic caves in Spain, while the lion was still found in Europe after the Christian era. The reindeer, the great Irish elk, the Norway elk, the urus, and the aurochs survived to historic times.

32. The animals of the African continent also had access to the European continent at or just before the date of the paleolithic age, as those of Asia had access to America at Behring's Straits, which communication has since been interrupted.

33. So that the fact, therefore, remains, that Neolithic Man was the first who was able to penetrate into Denmark and the North of England, Palæolithic Man having lived previously up to that line. It is admitted by both parties that the Ice was the barrier to palæolithic man. Which is most probable, that man advanced at once, as soon as the ice retired, or that he waited, restrained by some inexplicable cause, tens of thousands of years after it had retired, before he made that advance? I contend that the ice was in these regions down to the neolithic age; the advocates of the antiquity of man contend that it disappeared 100,000 years ago. On this latter theory, what prevented man from advancing? It is to be remembered that the men of the so-called Reindeer Age were extremely intelligent savages, and even if they were suddenly destroyed or driven to another continent, it is not credible that they had no successors in Europe for nearly a hundred thousand years. This would be a missing link in human life indeed.

34. Now these remarks do not imply that there was no line of demarcation between the paleolithic and neolithic ages; there is a very distinct line. There were great disturbances at this time, not only in Europe, but in America and in India and Siberia. The loess deposit in the river-valleys of the United States and Europe testifies to this, as does the sudden destruction by some great flood of the mammoth in Siberia. Perhaps there was a great deal of rain in Europe, incident to the breaking up of the glacier in the North. It may have been these continued rains which led to the destruction of the mammoth in Europe, and even man may have been temporarily driven from the continent. I only contend that there was no great lapse of time-ninety or a hundred thousand years. The destruction of the mammoth in Siberia and the preservation of his remains show that whatever occurred, occurred quickly; there were great forces at work, and the action was violent and paroxysmal. The same indications, as already observed, are given by the volume of the loess and the gravel in Europe and America.

The CHAIRMAN.-I am sure I may convey the thanks of the Institute to the author and also to the reader of this most interesting paper.*

Mr. DAVID HOWARD, F.C.S.-I cannot but think that a very strong protest is needed, such as this paper in a measure affords, against the modern habit of throwing in a few hundreds of thousands of years, whether they are wanted or not. It seems to me that the modern tendency, especially in regard to geological matters, is to refer to periods of hundreds of thousands of years in the same indefinite sense whereby in old indictments a man was stated to have called sundry-that is, ten thousand-people to assist him in his evil deeds. Undoubtedly in the study of geology we necessarily have to deal with enormous periods-periods so vast that they entirely overwhelm our knowledge of time; but it does seem somewhat childlike, because the sense of time is almost lost in the vastness of it, at once to rush into wild numbers which have no meaning. One knows very well that the old Greeks and the modern child, when they get a little way in counting, at once resort to the "myriad" of Homer. When it gets beyond the hundreds, the child has got quite beyond all notion of figures and addition, and I am a little afraid that there is something of the same tendency in modern thought on scientific matters. We get to a period which goes beyond history, and at once jump into myriads. We do not trouble our heads as to the exact counting of Homer. We do not suppose that he seriously meant what we do by the precise words he uses as we repeat them. I

Mr. S. R. Pattison, F.G.S., writes as follows in regard to the paper :I wish to offer a few observations, not to the general scope or conclusions of Dr. Southall's important paper, but to one portion of his argument. He states that the glacial_epoch in Scandinavia is contemporaneous with the first flint-tool period. This may have been so. Then, that the second, viz., the polished stone period, occurred as soon as the ice had been removed still further north. This also is most probable. He rightly thus brings down the close of the glacial epoch into the domains of history. But he further says that although there is a very distinct line of demarcation 'oetween the two periods, yet the one very quickly followed the other. Now, this, I think, is a weak proposition in a good argument. Whoevi studies the gravels and brick-earth of the palæolithic age in the ground be ow where we now stand, in the valley of the Thames, will see that great intervals of quiet deposit intercalate with other periods of disturbance of local an I great action. There are successive platforms of life, indicated alike by shells and bones. I believe that in one of these quiescent stages man first appeared here. He was both heralded and succeeded by floods and "moving accidents." The statement of this, and assigning adequate time, does not require, on the whole, more time than the Mosaic account by inference gives, and thus I beg to offer my thanks for the main argument of Dr. Southall. I is constructed on the lines which the thought on the subject is taking, vi, taking, vi, the bringing down the epoch of the great mammals and of the advent of 1 an, rather than the piling up ages for the latter, and I am glad the Society has had so clear and full a statement of the case. I have offered my rem irks to save the wholesale condemnation which might be uttered, on the ground of the untenable (as I think) hypothesis of a distinction between the first period and the epoch of disturbance, which I hold, on the evidence, to have been a portion of it.

cannot help thinking that the future geologist will treat the hundreds of thousands in the very same way. This paper does seem to show very clearly that the glacial period is by no means such a very distant one as many are inclined to suppose. It has struck me in past times in Switzerland, and very forcibly during last summer, when I specially examined one or two of the Swiss valleys, that it is almost inconceivable that any stone whatever can have resisted the action of the weather for the vast period said to have elapsed since the glacial period. If we compare the markings of the stone at the foot of the Mer de Glace, where the glacier has melted away, with the markings of the Ober-Hasli Thal, it is hardly conceivable that the stone can have been left marked by the glacial period, which we find almost as distinct and fresh as the stone which was covered by the glacier only seventeen or eighteen years ago. Undoubtedly granite will stand a long time, of which we have evidence in Cleopatra's Needle, beneath us; but I do not think one hundred thousand years will leave many markings upon it,—(Hear, hear,)—and I cannot think that the granite of the Höllen Platten will stand as long. In the upper part of the Maderaner Thal you have the glacial markings in the most wonderful perfection in the mountain limestone; but I do not think the mountain limestone will stand for a hundred thousand years. The channel markings are wonderfully fresh in this limestone, and we can hardly believe that it is even four thousand years since the glacier has channelled these stones. If we look back to the time, only about eighteen years ago, when the glaciers were rapidly advancing, into these valleys, and find now that two or three miles of glacier have melted away, leaving these beautifully marked stones, and if we consider that there had been but little change in climate there, or in the rest of Europe; we may see how very little change would be required, not merely to alter the glaciers, but almost to sweep them away. I think I am right in saying that the Upper Grindelwald glacier has sunk 150 feet; what, then, would another 150 feet do? It would leave many of the glaciers things of the past. One hundred and fifty feet thick of ice has disappeared with no change of climate, and a very little change of climate would sweep way the great Aletsch Glacier, and the Mer de Glace, and the Grindelwald Glacier. On the other hand, does it not seem possible that with but littl change of climate the glaciers might descend and fill the valleys, repro lucing the glacial epoch? I do not see any real proof that the glacial period of Switzerland was distinguished by such stupendous climatic conditions as is ordinarily supposed. The change might be consistent with the habitability of the greater part of Europe, and with hardly more variations than we see at present going on in Greenland. Do not let us forget that the glacial epoch is still going on in Greenland. A great part of Greenland has recently ceased to be habitable, and this points to the possibility of the glacial period, stupendous as it was in itself, co-existing with the life of man in the rest of the world, and possibly at no very distant period. It is quite possible that even within historic periods, even within the time of Nineveh and Babylon, there may have been changes on the vastest scale in

the mountains of Europe, caused by disturbances of climate, which may not have affected our ancestors in Mesopotamia. (Cheers.)

The CHAIRMAN.-Perhaps I may help on the proceedings by making a few remarks in addition to those of Mr. Howard. I find in this paper something like a silent protest against an assumption, which appears to me unwarrantable, on the part of persons who seem to be fond of long periods. Some people apparently revel in very high numbers. They remind me of a scientific man I once heard of. He lived in a country village, about eighteen miles from the principal town. He was always dabbling in astronomy, and it was said of him that he had been so accustomed to speak of miles by millions that when asked by a passer-by the distance to the market town, he answered that he did not think it was much more than eighteen millions of miles. (Laughter.) I think that some of these people much resemble this man. They are so much accustomed to speaking of thousands of millions of miles, that they cannot speak of less than thousands of millions of years. Their minds run entirely upon high numbers. When estimating the age of deposits, they always seem to assume that these deposits were made at a uniform rate. I have never found any proof that they were made uniformly. I do not pretend to be a profound geologist, but I have given a little attention to the subject, and I fancy I have found very distinct proof that they were not made uniformly. If I am right on this point the whole foundation of the hundreds of thousands or millions of years is gone; that which is said to have taken a hundred thousand years to form may only have taken fifteen hundred years. Not only is it unfair to assume that all deposits were made at a uniform rate, it is also unfair to say that they were, in every case, made at any rate at all. M. Belgrand asserts that the change from the large rivers of the paleolithic age to the small rivers of the neolithic age must have taken place suddenly." I remember the late Mr. E. Hopkins saying, at one of the early meetings of the Institute, that he knew of a very deep formation being made in this way. Whilst travelling in one of the valleys of the Andes he passed over a small plain in the mountains. Passing by the same place within six months afterwards he found that an avalanche had descended, and that there was a deposit on this plain, which, if examined by a geological eye, would have been pronounced to be the work of some fifty thousand years, while, as he said, it had taken only six months to form. I am glad to see in this paper some protest against these modes of reasoning, which I cannot but think unfair and misleading.

Mr. CALLARD. There is much in this paper with which I agree, and there are some things with which I do not agree. Although I agree with you, sir, and with the last speaker, and with the author of the paper, that there is no evidence as to 800,000 or 200,000 years back. being the time of the glacial epoch, yet these figures are not taken at haphazard, as might be thought from the remarks that have been made. They are based on the theory that the cause of the glacial epoch was a great eccentricity of the earth's orbit. It became an astronomical question at what period we had these great eccentricities. Astronomers

worked out that we had two great eccentricities, one 800,000 years, and the other 200,000 years back, and if the hypothesis had been correct, we had some data for fixing these glacial periods. I have on a former occa sion attempted to prove that the eccentricity of the earth's orbit would not occasion the glacial epoch, and that therefore these data have nothing whatever to do with the question. But, whilst I agree with the author of the paper that 200,000 years ago is not the period we are obliged to accept, yet I hesitate in accepting the conclusion of Dr. Southall that the period was as recent as he puts it, the vast changes that have taken place leading me to hesitate. For example, the paper refers to the paleolithic flood which would have swept across Southern England and Northern France -that paleolithic flood which it is assumed deposited the gravels. A flood carrying these gravels is more in accordance with what I have observed, than these gravels being river deposits. Yet I must remark that the time at which these gravels could have been swept across England and the North of France by the palaeolithic flood was a time when the Straits of Dover were not in existence, and the geological convulsion necessary for the sweeping of these gravels across England and France, connecting it also with the alteration that has taken place in the Straits of Dover, makes me hesitate in supposing that this could have taken place as recently as the author puts it, for it would bring it to about the time of Abraham. I have not been accustomed to think that such great changes have taken place at such a recent period as that. The author of the paper says:- "If I can show that the glacial epoch came down to the date of Robenhausen and the Danish shell-mounds, I shall have brought that mysterious geological episode within the well-defined limits of chronology" (par. 9). If we take the date of Robenhausen, the author of the paper has put it at four thousand years back,—I do not think he ought to put it further back-Robenhausen is one of the oldest of the Lake Dwellings, and antiquarians have been accustomed to speak of it as of great antiquity. I visited it during last autumn, and, in conjunction with the famous antiquary, M. Messikommer, who resides in that neighbourhood, did some dredging. Judging from the things we brought from the bottom, I should not think Robenhausen a place of vast antiquity. We brought up pieces of pottery, also portions of woven cloth. The people who had inhabited Robenhausen knew something, therefore, about the loom. When I reached home I met with some remark about metal having been found there, and crucibles. I wrote to M. Messikommer to know whether he had met with anything of the kind, and his reply was in the affirmative, but he said the metal he had found was not larger than the head of a pin, it was copper, and was in a crucible. This was enough. If the metal were as large as the head of a pin and he had found it in what was really a crucible, I was satisfied. There were also five other crucibles. When we find six crucibles among the things belonging to these lake dwellings, we must conclude that they knew something about metals, and if they did, this fact takes them out of the stone age. Now the conclusion of the author that the glacial epoch lasted up to the polished stone age, is based upon the