PALEOLITHIC RACES 339 



Must we for that reason reject it ? By no means : we shall 

 not condemn the prisoner at the bar on account of his pedigree, 

 or because he has been convicted of a first offence. At the 

 same time, in making an unprejudiced inquiry into the case, 

 we shall be more than usually exacting in our demand for 

 proofs. 



We will therefore inquire whether there is any independent 

 evidence in favour of these supposed inter-glacial or genial 

 periods. It would seem that there is. 



Every one, at least every geologist, who has visited Inns- 

 bruck, that delightful starting-place for the mountains, is 

 familiar with the peculiar red stone which is so much used 

 there for building. It comes from some neighbouring quarries 

 situated on the northern slope of the Inn valley, near the 

 village of Hotting. By walking down to the promenade by 

 the side of the river we shall obtain a good general view. 

 The breccia is seen, at a height of about 500 ft. above the 

 bottom of the valley, as an almost horizontal band, several 

 hundred feet in thickness, and very conspicuous owing to the 

 contrast of its reddish colour with the dark blue rock beneath : 

 its course can be plainly traced by the heaps of waste stone 

 thrown out from the workings along its face. Crossing the 

 bridge, a short walk takes us to the quarries. The breccia 

 is then found to consist of fragments for the most part of a 

 dark grey dolomitic limestone cemented together by a reddish 

 marly matrix, and the deposit is such as might result from 

 the consolidation of the debris brought down by a mountain 

 torrent. The rock on which it rests is a dark blue clay con- 

 taining obviously scratched glacial boulders ; it is a true 

 boulder clay, and represents a moraine of the third glacial 

 episode. Since the breccia overlies this, it must be of later 

 date. But higher up, at a height of about 2,500 to 3,000 ft, 

 we encounter a second deposit of boulder clay, a moraine 

 formed during the fourth or last glacial episode. This rests 

 directly upon the smooth surface of the breccia, which must 

 consequently be of earlier date. 



Thus the breccia is older than the last glacial episode, and 

 younger than the last but one, and may provisionally be re- 

 garded as filling the interval between them — i.e. it represents 

 a hypothetical interglacial or genial epoch. 



Taken by itself the evidence we have so far offered is not 



