TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 523 



historic period. It seerus by no means improbable that this gigantic stag survived 

 iu this country for ages after he had become extinct in other lands, and that the 

 view held by Professor Hull of his extinction being due to persecution by man is 

 correct. If this be so it would seem to follow that the human occupation of 

 Ireland is of far more recent date than that of the sister country. 



And this brings me to one of those questions which have of late been occupying 

 the attention of geologists. I mean the date which is to be assigned to the imple- 

 ment-bearing beds of Palaeolithic age in England. Dr. James Geikie has held that 

 for the most part they belong to an interglacial episode towards the close of the 

 Glacial period, and regards it as certain that no Palaeolithic bed can be shown to 

 belong to a more recent date than the mild era that preceded the last great sub- 

 mergence. 



His follower, Mr. Skertchly, records the finding of Palaeolithic implements in 

 no less than three interglacial beds, each underlying boulder clays of different ages 

 and somewhat different charac ters— the Hessle, the purple, and the chalky boulder 

 clay. This raises two main questions, first, as to how far Dr. Croll's theory of the 

 great alternations of climate during the Glacial period can be safely maintained ; 

 and secondly, how far the observations as to the discovery of implements in the 

 so-called Brandon beds underlying the chalky boulder clay can be substantiated. 

 Another question is how far the Palaeolithic deposits can be divided into those of 

 modern and ancient valleys, separated from each other by the purple boulder clay, 

 and the later of the two older than the Hessle beds. It would be out of place here 

 to discuss these questions at length. I will only observe, that in a considerable 

 number of cases the gravels containing the implements can be distinctly shown tobe 

 of much later date than the chalky boulder clay, and that if the implements occur 

 in successive beds in the same district, each separated from the other by an enormous 

 lapse of time, during which the whole country was buried beneath incredibly large 

 masses of invading ice, and the whole mammalian fauna was driven away, it is a 

 very remarkable circumstance. It is not the less remarkable because this succession 

 of different Palaeolithic ages seems to be observable in one small district only, and 

 there is as close a resemblance between the instruments of the presumedly different 

 ages as there is between those of admittedly the same date. I have always main- 

 tained the probability of evidence being found of the existence of Man at an earlier 

 period than that of the post-glacial or quaternary river gravels, but, as in all other 

 cases, it appears to me desirable that the evidence brought forward should be tho- 

 roughly sifted and all probability of misapprehension removed before it is finally 

 accepted. In the present state of our knowledge, I do not feel confident that the 

 evidence as to these three successive Palaeolithic deposits has arrived at this satis- 

 factory stage. At the same time it must be home in mind that if we make the 

 Palaeolithic period to embrace not only the river gravels but the cave deposits of 

 which the south of France furnishes such typical examples, its duration must 

 have been of vast extent. 



In connection with the question of Glacial and Interglacial periods, I may 

 mention that of climatal changes in general, which has formed another subject to 

 ■which much attention has of late been given. The return of the Arctic Expe- 

 dition, and the reports of the geological observations made during its progress, 

 which have been published by Captain Fielden, one of the naturalists to the Expe- 

 dition, in conjunction with Mr. De Ranee and Professor Heer, have conferred 

 additional interest on the question of possible changes in the position of the poles 

 of the earth, and on other kindred speculations. Near Discovery Harbour-, about 

 latitude 81° 40', Miocene beds were found containing a flora somewhat differing 

 from that which was already known to exist within the Arctic regions. "The 

 Grinnell Land lignite," say the authors of the report, " indicates a thick peat moss, 

 with probably a small lake, with water lilies on the surface of the water, and reeds 

 on the edges, with birches, poplars, and taxodiums on the banks, and with pines, 

 firs, spruce, elms, and hazel-bushes on the neighbouring hills." "When we consider 

 that all of the genera here represented have their present limits at least from 

 twelve to fifteen degrees farther south, while the taxodium is now confined to 

 Mexico and the south of the United States, such a sylvan landscape as that 



