SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONH.— H. 379 



ment in another. The uncertainty in the correlation of glacial deposits in adjacent 

 areas, even in parts of a country, such as the North German Plain, where the 

 geographical uniformity would appear most favourable to concurrent glacial develop- 

 ments, indicates the difficulty in the correlation of meteorological processes in more 

 distant and different areas. 



Dr. K. S. Sandford said that he felt very deeply the difficulty of correlating from 

 one area to another, and that he feared he had not been able to find in Egypt the 

 evidence of an arid period between two Pleistocene pluvial periods. He was therefore 

 unable to agree with Misses Gardner and Caton-Thompson on this point. 



Prof. W. J. SoLLAS, F.R.S., said that he felt somewhat disturbed by the voices 

 urging caution. He hoped that investigators would have the insight to discriminate 

 between major and minor episodes in the history of the Pleistocene Ice Age, and 

 would have the courage to go on making hypotheses which were, at any rate, guides 

 to further investigation. 



Prof. SoLCH (Heidelberg) said that while there were many divergent opinions in 

 Central Europe, as in England, he thought that most workers accepted the Penck- 

 Briickner sequence with the Giinz episode either omitted or reduced in importance, 

 and the Mindel-Riss interglacial period strongly emphasised. Most workers in the 

 Alps now accepted the view that the Hotting breccia belonged to the Mindel-Riss 

 interglacial ; and indicated relatively warm conditions. The opinion was very 

 generally held now in Central Europe that the latter part of the Pleistocene Ice Age 

 had witnessed an uplift of some 500 m. ; the climatic consequences should be borne 

 in mind. 



Prof. P. G. H. BoswELL was unable to attend, but sent the following notes on 

 Early Man and the Correlation of Glacial Deposits : — 



The numerous attempts which have been made to correlate the successions of 

 glacial deposits in the areas of the Alps and North-west Europe have been founded 

 on one or both of two conceptions : (1) that the maximum glaciation (as defined hj 

 either the area covered by ice or the intensity of cold) is synchronous in the Alpine 

 area and north-western Europe, and (2) that human industries are approximately 

 contemporaneous, and not merely homotaxial, in the two areas, and are similarly 

 related to the glacial and interglacial phases in each of the areas. 



In the first place it would be well if we had some direction from our meteorological 

 friends as to the probability^ or otherwise of maximum glaciation being synchronous 

 in the Alpine and N.W. European areas. From the geological standpoint the 

 ' maximum glaciation ' of N.W. Europe is not the simple conception it used to be. 

 Work carried out during the last few decades has served to show that in the successive 

 glacial episodes which made up what we understand by the Great Ice Age, the centres 

 of growth of the ice-sheets migrated farther southwards in western Europe as they 

 approached the Atlantic. In the simplest case what -ne may term the maximum 

 glaciation of eastern England antedated the maximum glaciation of western England 

 and Ireland. Since, also, the more easterly part of each ice-sheet advanced less 

 towards the south than the westerly, it is difficult to assign a date to the maximum 

 glaciation of western Europe as a whole, and still more difficult to correlate it with 

 the maximum extent of the Alpine ice, even supposing that this maximum was 

 synchronous in the eastern and western Alpine areas. 



Closely connected with the ice-load and its melting is the problein of river and 

 sea-terraces. While correlation based on differences of level maj' be possible in such 

 an area as the Mediterranean, it does not appear likely to yield results on the Atlantic 

 shores, having regard to the differential movement known to have taken place and 

 the sporadic nature of the records we possess. 



The mammalian faunas afford help in broad correlation, but the species have too 

 long a time-range for linking up small rock-divisions. Hence it would seem that 

 we "may expect most from the human industries themselves. If \\c use these 

 industries for detailed correlation we must regard them as contemporaneous, not- 

 withstanding the time occupied in the migration of the peoples responsible for them, 

 or in the diffusion of technique. 



Let us therefore examine the possibilities of correlation of British and Continental 

 deposits on this basis. It will help if we set out the British stratigraphical succession 

 in a table, the first column giving the otder of superposition actually observed (except 

 where stated below) in the field. 



