MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
They found in those mountains and their surrounding 
foothills evidence of four glacial stages, which they called 
the Giinz, Mindel, Riss, and Wurm. 
Of these the first or Giinz stage, although it lasted for 
many thousands of years, seems to have been the least . 
extensive. Its traces, for example, appear to be lacking 
in parts of Germany and perhaps in England. At all 
events, no evidence exists of any very severe or wide- 
spread refrigeration, although the snow line in the Alps 
dropped 4,000 feet lower than the present 8,800 feet 
above sea level. 
After the Giinz glaciation had reached its maximum, 
the climate of Europe grew slowly milder again. The 
first interglacial stage was relatively short and its tem- 
perature seems to have been slightly warmer than that 
of the present, as indicated, for example, by the fossil 
remains of the hippopotamus. 
The second or Mindel stage ushered in the first really 
great period of glaciation, at least in Europe. Great ice 
sheets, spreading out from the Alps, from Scandinavia, 
and from Scotland, gradually overflowed those regions, 
in addition to the greater part of England and Holland, 
nearly the whole of northern Germany, and two-thirds of 
Russia. Ice packs covered the northern seas the year 
round, and glaciers, forming in the mountains of Scotland 
and Scandinavia, united in a solid mass of ice clear across 
the North Sea. 
There followed in turn another interglacial stage, which 
appears to have been the longest of all. Penck, indeed, 
believes that its duration was greater than all the time 
that has elapsed since. The remains of the vegetation 
indicate a climate not so very much warmer then than 
now. 
The third or Riss glaciation seems to have been more 
severe than the first, but less so than the second, and was 
followed by a warm interval of particular interest to us 
because in it many authorities place the beginning of 
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