266 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 
temporaneous origin. Thus, when the former are followed 
towards regions of glacial accumulation they eventually disappear 
under bowlder-clay or other diluvial deposits, or else they are 
found occupying interglacial positions. It was this remarkable 
distribution that first suggested to me, many years ago, that 
these ossiferous alluvia could not be of post-glacial age, as was 
at that time generally supposed. 
In raising the number of glacial epochs from two or three 
to five or six I am aware that I run the risk of exciting preju- 
dice. If it be hard to conceive of a succession of three glacial 
epochs, it will seem harder still to admit the possibility of 
double that number having supervened in Pleistocene times. 
We are so much the slaves of terminology, that had I restricted 
the term epoch to the first three cold stages, and merely described 
the last three as indicating efzsoda/ climatic oscillations in post- 
glacial times, my conclusions would probably have assumed a 
less disturbing guise. But the evidence was quite antagonistic 
to such a division. Before I had ascertained that the district 
ice-sheets, etc., of Britain (Mecklenburgian stage) represented 
a distinct glacial epoch—so long as I believed them to be merely 
the attenuated descendants of the minor mer de glace (Polan- 
dian stage )— it was possible to hold that the Glacial Period closed 
with the final disappearance of that particular ice-sheet. Thus 
the deposits of the 100-foot beach were formerly classed by me 
as ‘late glacial ’’—all the overlying accumulations being included 
” 
in the ‘post-glacial and recent series.” Some thirty years ago 
I had adduced evidence to show that oscillations of climate had 
supervened in post-glacial times—a view which was suggested 
by the occurrence of successive forest-beds in the peat-bogs of 
northwestern Europe. The researches of subsequent years 
tended strongly to confirm that view, and in Prehistoric Europe 
(1881) I showed that upon the decay of the great forests which 
occupy the bottom of the peat-bogs, the land was partially sub- 
merged, the climate became colder and more humid, and snow- 
fields and valley-glaciers reappeared in the Scottish Highlands 
These I designated “post-glacial glaciers.”” I had no thought at 
