388 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



delivered by Prof. J. E. Marr on March 17 last. The article 

 deals in a comprehensive manner with the problem of the 

 relation of the different so-called palaeolithic epochs to the 

 glacial phases in Great Britain. Notwithstanding the immense 

 literature dealing with this subject, there is much which is 

 interesting and highly stimulating in Prof. Marr's article. He 

 finds that there is satisfactory evidence of four cold periods 

 (with, of course, three intervening relatively warm ages), the 

 first of these cold periods being Pliocene, and the other three 

 Pleistocene. The author deals in special detail with the 

 Pleistocene beds of East Anglia, namely the Cromer Till, the 

 Middle Glacial Deposits, and the Chalky Boulder Clay. After 

 dealing with the finds in various localities, Prof. Marr comes 

 to the conclusion that the Chellean implements are older 

 than the Chalky Boulder Clay, which represents one of the 

 great glacial periods. The Chalky Boulder Clay was laid down 

 in the third of Prof. Marr's four cold phases, the fourth being 

 represented by the so-called Northern Drift of Wales. The 

 reader will notice at once the resemblance of this fourfold 

 classification of the glacial periods to the famous fourfold 

 classification which Prof. Penck put forward for the Alpine 

 region. Prof. Marr appears to think that it would be some- 

 what premature, however, to attempt to correlate his results 

 with those obtained in Continental countries ; but one of his 

 colleagues in Cambridge, Mr. M. C. Burkitt, does not agree, 

 and one of the later articles is an extraordinarily interesting 

 attempt by the latter writer to make such a correlation. Mr. 

 Burkitt does not correlate the four periods of Prof. Marr with the 

 four great glacial periods of Prof. Penck. He correlates the 

 age of the Chalky Boulder Clay with the last great glacial 

 period of the Alps — the Wiirmian. And he thinks that the 

 " Northern Drift " of Wales is to be correlated with the minor 

 " Biihl stadium," a cold phase which occurred shortly after the 

 Wiirmian period, and which was separated from the latter by 

 the less cold " Achen Recession," an age which was much less 

 warm than the present day, or than the real interglacial periods. 

 In this way Mr. Burkitt is able to fit in Prof. Marr's scheme 

 with the current French opinions, according to which the 

 Aurignacian and the whole of the later Palaeolithic must be 

 regarded as post-Wiirmian. The argument is not, however, 

 altogether convincing. And although it is perhaps unfair to 

 criticise a thesis which has obviously suffered from the neces- 

 sity of extreme brevity, the logic of the correlation, and of the 

 dating of the Continental periods themselves, seems to be 

 somewhat unsatisfactory. I would suggest that the apparently 

 obvious correspondence of the four English periods with the 

 four periods of Penck should be given very full consideration. 



