204 NATURAL SCIENCE. sept , 



the important conditions both of the problem of an extensive deluge, 

 and of the nature and disposition of the " rubble-drift " or " head." 



In this exposition of his views on the subject, Dr. Prestwich 

 treats briefly of the Mosaic and Chaldean accounts of the traditional 

 deluge ; and gives his reasons for not accepting as satisfactory the 

 supposition of its having been a valley flood in the Babylonian 

 region. 



He also premises that extreme Uniformitarianism cannot be 

 allowed to have any force against his explanation ; for " uniformity 

 in degree in all time " is not allowable, though the law of " uniformity 

 in kind " cannot be questioned. It is evident that upheavals and 

 down-sinkings have taken place in many periods of the Earth's 

 history ; but their relative intensities may and must have greatly 

 varied. 



The geographical distribution of the rubble-drift in England, the 

 Channel Islands, France, Spain and Portugal, Italy, Sicily, Malta, 

 and other Mediterranean Islands, Greece, and the coasts of North 

 Africa and of Asia Minor, is broadly sketched, and careful descrip- 

 tions of special examples are given in detail, with some illustrative 

 sections. 



The author remarks that the absence of marine remains in the 

 rubble-drift might be thought to be inimical to the idea of its having 

 been formed by sea-water retreating from the land after having 

 submerged it for some time ; but he thinks that the time was too 

 short, and the water too much muddied with the recent wear and tear 

 of surface-soils, for sea animals to have thrived there. The absence 

 of water-channels and of water-worn material shows that the rubble- 

 drift was not due to exclusive rainfall and river-action. Nor could 

 the conditions of the Glacial Period have coincided with this drift- 

 formation, for ice-sheets would not have allowed of the existence of 

 the creatures whose remains are met with in the rubble ; moreover, 

 the land-shells would have been broken, if present, and the bones of 

 animals would have been rubbed and worn. Nor does a " wave of 

 translation " embrace sufficient probable results to account for many of 

 the observed facts. 



When these changes of level took place, Man must have existed, 

 for his implements, chipped out of flints, are present at many places 

 in the rubble-drift, having been swept off the surface all over the area 

 treated of by the author, as well as in such cave-earths and loess 

 (sometimes with human bones) as were contemporary with it. The 

 relative date of the rubble-drift can be calculated, though not clearly, 

 from the extent to which it has been worn away on cliffs ; and 

 (coincidently) from the probability that Palaeolithic Man existed at 

 the close ot the Glacial Period, within a period of from 10,000 to 

 12,000 years of our own time. 



With these observations on facts and theoretical deductions. 

 Dr. Prestwich seems to have found good cause to express his 

 opinion that natural results from changes of tension in the mobile 

 earth-crust would bring about oscillations of land and sea, such as 

 have often happened ; and that such a change gave rise to a sub- 

 mergence, and subsequent emergence, seriously affecting certain 

 regions, their surface and their inhabitants, within the history of the 

 human race. 



He recognises the absence of direct evidence as to similar 

 diluvial materials existing far eastward of Europe, in that region 

 where the "Mosaic Deluge" has always been supposed to have 

 occurred. The extensive European area, however, where the move- 



