ANTHROPOLOGY 235 



have existed sparsely for long ages before it became densely 

 and widely spread in the Mindel-Riss interglacial. And, on the 

 other hand, it may have persisted in some localities long after 

 the Acheulean and Mousterian artefacts had appeared in more 

 favoured districts. Nevertheless, the evidence now advanced 

 is naturally of the highest importance and interest. But on 

 one point a protest may be issued. It is true that the older 

 geologists classed the Cromer Forest Bed as " Pliocene " ; but 

 now that more is known of the correspondence of English and 

 Continental strata, and since Moir himself agrees that the 

 Forest Bed belongs to the Giinz-Mindel interglacial phase, the 

 use of the word " Pliocene " in this connection is obviously 

 incorrect and misleading. The natural, as well as the conven- 

 tional, commencement of the Pleistocene is at the Giinz 

 glaciation. 



A discussion of this same subject has taken place also in 

 recent numbers of Man. In the January number Mr. H. J. E. 

 Peake wrote an article on : " The Ice Age and Man," and 

 invited discussion. Peake agrees with the recently published 

 opinion of M. C. Burkitt, that the Chalky Boulder Clay is Wiirm 

 (fourth glacial), not Riss ; and he consequently adheres to the 

 French scheme. He publishes a table which is intended to 

 reconcile various authors by " revising " their results. The 

 attempt is interesting, but not very successful. Geikie is 

 revised out of all recognition. Geikie's " Mecklenburgian " 

 was not represented by the Chalky Boulder Clay, and his Lower 

 Turbarian had a Holocene fauna, and was therefore totally 

 unlike the continental Biihl, which has a Pleistocene fauna. 

 Moreover, Peake adds confusion to the subject by pushing even 

 the Mindel-Riss interglacial phase back into the *' Phocene," 

 and by applying the word Pleistocene to the Azilian age, with 

 its notoriously Holocene fauna. In the April number Reid 

 Moir replied to Peake. He republished his former correlation, 

 and his scheme is in straightforward agreement with Penck. 

 He published his views in the form of a definite geological table, 

 which I would recommend those interested to study. There 

 seems to me to be much probability in Moir's scheme, and the 

 only criticism I would offer is that it is a doubtful proceeding 

 to lump all the Red, Norwich, and Weybourne Crags together 

 as Giinz. The Red Crag is more probably a real Upper Plio- 

 cene stratum. In the May number Mr. C. E. P. Brooks, the 

 meteorologist, also entered the arena. He says that the Mindel- 

 Riss was the only real interglacial period, the only really warm 

 phase in the Pleistocene, and hence that there were only tw^o 

 glacial periods, the Giinz-Mindel (combined) and the Riss- 

 Wurm (combined), though each of these was " composed of 

 several oscillations and readvances." He places the Chalky 



