248 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 
the same stage ought to be referred those Pleistocene marine 
beds of Sicily which are charged with a northern fauna. 
The Saxonian thus includes the ‘lower bowlder-clay” of the 
British Islands; the ‘“‘lower diluvium”’ of Holland, central and 
southern Germany and central Russia; the ground-moraines and 
terminal moraines of the ‘‘outer zone” (Alpine Lands), and 
their associated gravels; the older moraines of many mountain ~ 
tracts in middle and southern Europe; the lower breccias of 
Gibraltar and much of the “rubble-drift”’ of other regions. 
IV. HELVETIAN (OR ELEPHAS-ANTIQUUS STAGE). 
The interglacial deposits of this stage having been first 
detected in-Switzerland suggest the term selected. The Hel- 
vetian includes a number of well-known deposits, some being 
marine, while others are of fresh-water and terrestrial origin. 
The flora and fauna are indicative of varying climatic conditions. 
Some of the British beds, for example, have yielded a northern 
and temperate flora, the mammals including mammoth, woolly 
rhinoceros and reindeer, while others contain the relics of tem- 
perate and southern forms, such as Llephas antiquus, Rhinoceros 
leptorlinus, Eippopotamus, etc. In like manner, the equivalent 
beds in middle Europe have yielded northern and temperate 
floras and faunas — the latter including mammoth, Elephas antiquus, 
Irish deer, horse, etc., while the flora betokens a more genial 
climate than now obtains but subsequently deteriorating. In 
central and southern Europe the Helvetian stage is character- 
ized by a temperate flora and fauna—-the latter marked by the 
presence of Llephas antiquus, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros Merckit, 
mammoth, etc. 
Amongst the more prominent members of the Helvetian 
group are the interglacial beds of the British area, as in the 
maritime tracts of the Moray Firth and the Irish Sea, in Lanark- 
shire, Ayrshire, Edinburghshire, etc.; the Hessle gravels of East 
Anglia; the beach-deposits of Sussex; the accumulations of 
Settle Cave, etc. On the Continent, we have certain marine and 
fresh-water interglacial beds occurring in the Baltic coast-lands ; 
