INTRODUCTION. II 



Glacial epoch, apparently agreeing with Professor Geikie in 

 regarding the subsidence that has taken place in Britain as 

 not being sufficient to have exterminated either the fauna or 

 flora, and consequently attributing such extermination as he 

 admits to have taken place, solely to the ice-sheet. He is of 

 opinion that during the Glacial period the ice-sheet did not, at 

 most, extend further south than the latitude of London, and 

 that it very possibly stopped short of this. Taking the former 

 view, he remarks that " this would leave the counties of Kent, 

 Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, 

 and part of Wiltshire free from ice. As far as space, then, is 

 concerned, we have an area capable of affording an asylum to 

 a considerable number of our plants and animals. If, however, 

 the Boulder Clay was not formed beneath the ice, then the 

 latter probably did not extend so far south as the latitude of 

 London, and the area fitted to form an asylum for our pre- 

 glacial flora and fauna increased." 



After going into the consideration of the nature of the 

 climate of countries lying on the borders of ice-sheets, and also 

 noting that the limit of the ice-sheet marked by the Boulder 

 Clay would be the extreme winter extension of the ice, which 

 must have receded to a certain extent during the summer, 

 while mention is made of the circumstance that the Gulf- 

 stream probably then, as now, warmed our western and south- 

 ern shores, Mr. Bulman adds that during the greatest glacia- 

 tion of Britain there may have been areas fitted to preserve 

 temperate forms of life besides the southern counties already 

 mentioned. 



After referring to certain instances in our flora and fauna 

 which are considered to prove survival from the pre-glacial 

 epoch, the author proceeds to argue that, had the alleged 

 second continental connection been a fact, it must in all 

 probability have been of such duration as would have per- 



