valuable instruments they may be for classifying the Pleistocene strata in glaciated areas, cannot be used successfully in non-glaciated areas for the arrangement of the European Pleistocenes, which must be treated in the same way as other geological deposits by an appeal to the animal remains which they contain. The glacial series of events[1] is one thing, and the zoological[2] altogether another thing. The Pleistocene fauna is not divided from that which went before and that which followed after by a barrier of ice.
The Palæolithic hunters of the Creswell Caves, judged by the zoological standard, belong to the late Pleistocene age, since the numerous remains of Reindeer prove that the Arctic mammalia were then in possession of the land. Whether they be Pre- Inter-, or Postglacial is altogether doubtful.
Discussion.
Prof. Rütimeyer dwelt on the insufficiency of stratigraphical data for the determination of the age of glacial deposits in caves, but referred to two beds of lignites on the shores of the Lake of Zürich, which are undoubtedly of interglacial age, seeing that they are underlain and overlain by glacial deposits. In these lignites there had been found remains of Cervus elaphus, C. alces, Ursus spelæus, and of Rhinoceros hemitœchus and Elephas antiquus, the last two determined by the late Dr. Falconer. He remarked that traces of man's existence have been found along with such remains, and in Italy a human skull occurred in strata containing Elephas meridionalis. In the lignite of Wetzikon thin wooden stakes have been met with, sharpened at one end, and bound round with what seemed to be strips of bark, which, however, had proved to be small segments of similar sticks split radially in the direction of the medullary rays. Prof. Rütimeyer added that traces of man have been thus discovered in true Pliocene deposits on both sides of the Alps.
Mr. Evans, from the form of the needle and scrapers, was inclined to refer them to a later age than that usually assigned to Solutré. He inquired whether the ruddle mentioned by Prof. Dawkins consisted of scraped hæmatite like that found in French caves: for if so it showed an interesting similarity of habit in people so widely separated. He noticed the resemblance of the quartzite implements to those of the neighbourhood of Toulouse. With regard to the earliest appearance of man in this country, Mr. Evans remarked that, if there was evidence of his presence in glacial or preglacial times, he must have existed previously somewhere else under a milder climate. This, he thought, was probable; but he had not yet met with any conclusive evidence of the fact, and he was glad to find that the determination of the supposed human fibula from the Victoria Cave was so doubtful that it may safely be rejected. With regard to the alleged discovery of traces of preglacial man in Suffolk and Norfolk, he
- ↑ Geikie, 'Ice-Age.'
- ↑ Boyd Dawkins, "Classification of Pleistocene Strata by Mammalia" Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1872, and 'Cave-hunting.'
