THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARTH-MOVEMENT HYPOTHESIS. 225 



beds, containing lignite, peat, diatomaceons earth, and marine, 

 brackish, and freshwater molluscs, fish, etc., and now and 

 again bones of Pleistocene mammals.* A similar strongly- 

 marked division characterises the glacial accumulations of 

 Sweden, as has been clearly shown by De Geer,f who thinks 

 that the older and younger epochs of glaciation were 

 separated by a protracted period of interglacial conditions. 

 In short, evidence of a break in the glacial succession has 

 been traced at intervals across the whole width of the con- 

 tinent, from the borders of the North Sea to Central Russia. 

 M. Krischtafowitsch has recently detected in the neighbour- 

 hood of Moscow! certain fossiliferous interglacial beds, the 

 flora and fauna of which indicate a warmer or moister 

 climate than the present. The interglacial stage, he says, 

 must have been of long duration, and separated in Russia as 

 in Western Europe two distinct epochs of glaciation. 



No mere temporary retreat and re-advance of the ice-front 

 can account for these phenomena. The occurrence of 

 remains of the great pachyderms at Rixdorf, near Berlin, and 

 the character of the flora met with in the interglacial beds 

 of North Germany and Russia a,re incompatible with glacial 

 conditions in the low grounds of Northern Europe. The 

 interglacial beds, described by Dr. C. Weber§ as occurring 

 near Griinenthal, in Holstein, are among the more recent dis- 

 coveries of this kind. These deposits rest upon boulder-clay, 

 and are overlaid by another sheet of the same character, and 

 belong, according to Weber, to " that great interglacial period 

 which preceded the last ice-sheet of Northern Europe." 

 The section shows 8 feet of peat resting on freshwater 

 clay, 2 feet thick, which is underlaid by some 10 feet of 



* For interglacial beds of N. Germany see Helland : Zeitschr. d. deutsch. 

 geol. G'es. xxxi, 879 ; Penck : Ibid, xxxi, 157 ; Landerhmde von Europa 

 (Dasdeutsche Reich) 1887, 512 ; Dames : Samml. gemeinverstdndl. wissensch. 

 Vortrage, von Virchoio u. Holtzendorff : xx Ser. 479 Heft ; Schroder : 

 Jahrb. d. k. geol. Landesanst. f. 1885, p. 219. For further references see 

 Wahnschaffe, op. cit. I have not thought it worth while in this paper to 

 refer to the interglacial deposits of our own islands. A general account 

 of them will be found in my Great Ice Age, and Prehistoric Etirope. The 

 interglacial phenomena of the continent seem to be less known here than 

 they ought to be. 



t Zeitschrift d. deutsch geolog. Gesellschaft, Bd. xxxvii, p. 177. 



\ Anseichen einer interglaziiiren Epoche in Central- Russland, Moskau, 

 1891. 



§ JYeues Jahrbuch f. Mineralogie, Geologie, u. Palaontologie, 1891, Bd. 

 ii, pp. 62, 228 ; 1892, Bd. i, p. 114. 



