310 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



Formerly the presence of such large mammals as the Elephas 

 printigoniusi Rhinoceros tickorhinus, Bos primi genius, and Ursus 

 spelcetis, was considered the dividing line between geological 

 and human history, now the extensive researches of such able 

 naturalists as Lartet, Von Baer, Riitimeyer, and Brandt, have 

 proved that these quadrupeds were once contemporaneous with 

 man. The question before us is whether we can establish a suc- 

 cessive chronology of events since the appearance of these ani- 

 mals upon the earth. Brandt has attempted to show that they 

 were living within the historical period, and has argued therefrom 

 that the native cattle of Europe were developed from the Bos 

 primigenius. The argument for their recent extinction is drawn 

 from documents hitherto partly unknown, because written in the 

 Sclavonic tongue ; these represent the existence of Bos primigenius 

 in the forests of Lithuania and Poland up to the llth and 13th cen- 

 turies. The presence of Cervus megaceros in the marshes of Europe 

 up to the 14th century is also made probable. 



There is no doubt that the fauna of the diluvial deposits and of 

 the European caves consisted of animals, some of which, at least, 

 had a circumpolar geographical distribution, and that the south- 

 ern limit of animals now living in the polar regions was once 

 much greater than now; remains of the reindeer have been found 

 all through France to the Pyrenees and in Southern Germany. 

 We find that these mammals had intimate relations with the ice- 

 period, and it becomes necessary for us to investigate the extent 

 of the ice-fields at the time when the glacial period was at its 

 height. He believed that the changes in extent which our ice- 

 fields have undergone, during successive periods, would furnish 

 us with data for our chronology. In America the ice-fields, at 

 the time of their greatest extension within definite limits, reached 

 the 32d degree of north latitude. In Europe they extended as 

 far as the plains of Lombardy. Subsequent to this came a limited 

 glacial period, in which the Southern and Middle States were 

 freed from glaciers, but from Maine westerly the country was 

 still ice-bound. During a third period, the ice retreated to the 

 northern shores of Lake Superior and the slopes of Mt. Katahclin, 

 while in a fourth period, the one before the present, the continent 

 was clothed with vegetation up to the hilly parts of Canada. 



In answer to the question whether we had any means of con- 

 necting chronology with these facts, it might be stated that none 

 of the cave animals or the large mammals which have been men- 

 tioned have been proved to exist prior to the time of the greatest 

 extent of the ice-fields, and, as it can no longer be doubted that 

 man lived contemporaneously with these animals, he believed 

 that with the waning of the ice-period began the era of primeval 

 man. In the successive epochs of the ice, indicated by the retreat- 

 ing ice, we have a relative chronology ; when we ask for more spe- 

 cific statements of age, we find ourselves at once at a loss for an 

 answer. Some indications might be seen in the abrasions of 

 rocks of unequal hardness, and instances were cited in illustration, 

 of this. 



In the course of the discussion which followed these remarks, 



