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T. H. Struthers — Tertiary and Post- Tertiary. 



elevation which followed the submergence at the close of the Great 

 Ice Age, when the climatic conditions and the adaptations of organic 

 nature were becoming more and more favourable to the existence 

 and welfare of the human species. This latter period is called by 

 Sir Charles Lyell Post-pliocene, and by Dr. Hull Post-glacial. 

 Professor Geikie, of the Edinburgh University, also uses the term 

 Post-glacial for Lyell's Post-pliocene; and in his " Outlines of 

 Geology " he expresses the opinion that "the palaeolithic inhabitants 

 of Europe settled in that continent during the Glacial period, and 

 had disappeared before the advent of the Post-glacial and Recent 

 period." 



In his admirable "Manual of Geology," Mr. J. Beete Jukes, for 

 convenience, embraces the Glacial and Post-glacial under one head 

 — Pleistocene — a term originally employed by Lyell to indicate the 

 Glacial period, but for which he substituted Newer Pliocene, 

 because the late Professor Edward Forbes had used Pleistocene 

 nearly in the same sense as that in which he (Lyell) uses Post- 

 pliocene in his "Antiquity of Man" (Introduction, p. 6). 



Dr. Hull adopts the term Post-pliocene instead of Lyell's Newer 

 Pliocene to indicate the Glacial period, and in common with him 

 places it in the Tertiary division of strata, while Professor Geikie 

 and Mr. J. B. Jukes tabulate it as a Post-tertiary group under the 

 designation of Pleistocene ; the latter authority, in common with 

 Professor Prestwich, including the Postpliocene under the same 

 head. 



We prefer to follow Jukes, Hull, and Geikie in discarding the 

 term Post-pliocene ; and instead of adopting Post-glacial as an 

 equivalent, we propose to substitute Pleistocene. The terminology 

 we suggest will be made plainer by reference to the following table : 



For the sake of phraseological sequence, we substitute the term 

 Holocene (all recent) for the incongruous word Recent ; and 

 to supply the want of terms for the Tertiary and Post-tertiary 

 systems, we distinguish the former as Megazoic (gigantic life) and 

 the latter as Anthropozoic (human life), to indicate their leading 

 zoological characteristics ; and the substitution of Pleistocene for 

 Post-pliocene or Post-glacial we consider an improvement upon 

 the nomenclature verbally, without detriment to its descriptive 

 applicability. 



The term Post-glacial, as formerly designating a group, might be 



