164 PROF. E. HULL, LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S., ON 



period, and also post Appalachian uplift, no clue lias as yet 

 appeared giving the approximate age of them. 



2. If so much less " Gulf Stream " heat went north during the 

 period of elevation indicated upon Dr. Hull's map, the supposition 

 is that, other conditions being the same, so much more of it flowed 

 southward ; and if so, we may postulate that in those days there 

 was less Antarctic ice than now. 



The Cavaliere W. P. Jervis, T.G.S., Conservator of the Royal 

 Italian Industrial Museum at Turin, Avrites : — 



Few geological difficulties have constantly presented themselves 

 to my mind of such a serious kind as the explanations advanced 

 as to the causes of changes of climate on our globe in geological 

 times, including the intense cold during the Glacial epoch, and 

 the converse warmer temperature during the Miocene epoch. 

 None of the theories elicited have convinced me. But the paper 

 read before the Victoria Institute by Professor Hull, based, as 

 the arguments are on the most forcible logical and palfeonto- 

 logical data relating to the entire eastern and southern coast- 

 lines of North America, has dissipated, as by enchantment, all my 

 doubts, and the proofs he adduces of the former non-existence of 

 the Gulf Stream appear to me to throw a bright light upon many 

 obscure points of geological climatology. 



Though Lyell laid gTeat stress upon changes in the geographical 

 configuration of our globe at successive periods of its existence, 

 and showed the ever-changing elevation and depression of vast 

 tracts of country, it would appear that enough attention has not been 

 paid to these considerations, and hypothetical astronomical causes 

 have found too much favour with not a few geologists — and in 

 absence of proofs. 



River- valleys have been plainly traced by Issel to great depths 

 in the Mediterranean, in prolongation of what are now short 

 valleys in Northern Italy, and doubtless elsewhere much progress 

 will be obtained in our knowledge of the past, of the fauna and 

 flora of geological epochs, and of the erstwhile distribuiions of 

 land and water, by a more extensive study of soundings of the 

 ocean.* 



* One of the most interesting series of six maps exhibited by Di\ 

 Gerard de Geer in the Swedisli section of the YIth International Congress, 

 held in London iu 1896, showed the glacial regions of Finland and 



