EBUROPEAN GLACIAL DEPOSITS, 267 
that time of including this recrudescence of glaciation as a phase 
of the Glacial Period proper. I then considered the closing 
stage of the Ice Age to be represented by the groundmoraine of 
the minor mer de glace and by the moraines of retreat dropped 
by the great valley-glaciers into which that ice-sheet, as I 
believed, was finally resolved. The contrast between the mer de 
glace of our upper bowlder-clay, and the terminal moraines of 
“post-glacial” times was so great that it would have been absurd 
to include the latter in the Glacial Period proper. The subse- 
quent discovery by Penck of ‘post-glacial’? moraines in the 
Pyrenees, and the recognition of similar “post-glacial” stages in 
the Alpine Lands, tended to confirm me in the view that the 
Glacial Period closed with the disappearance of the vast ice- 
sheet underneath which our upper bowlder-clay was accumulated. 
But after I had learned that the district ice-sheets of Britain and 
the last great Baltic glacier belonged to an independent epoch, 
separated from the preceding cold epoch by well-marked inter- 
glacial conditions of long duration, it became necessary to 
reconsider the question of classification. The intercalation of 
the Neudeckian and Mecklenburgian stages at once broke down 
the climatic barrier, if I may so speak, that seemed at one time 
to separate glacial from ‘“‘post-glacial” times. The great con- 
trast between the two no longer exists. What I find is a succes- 
sion of glacial and interglacial stages, beginning with the Scanian 
and terminating with the Upper Turbarian. The climax of gla- 
cial extension was reached in Saxonian times, after which each 
cold stage diminished continuously in importance. In like 
manner the earliest interglacial epoch appears to have been the 
most genial, each successive epoch approximating more and 
more closely to existing conditions. In a word, the climates of 
the later glacial and interglacial phases were less contrasted than 
those of the earlier stages of the series. 
But it may be urged that the earlier climatic stages being so 
much more pronounced than those of later times, they alone 
should be considered of epochal importance. Well, much 
depends upon what we imply by the term epoch. For myself I 
