NORTH EUROPEAN GLACIAL DEPOSITS 123. 



Europe correspond respectively with i, 2 and 3 in the Alps, and 

 the small extension of ice in the fourth and fifth ice epochs, recog- 

 nizable in the Alps, Norway, and Scotland, and of approximately 

 equal extent, are represented in north Germany, not by the reap- 

 pearance of a mcr dc glace, but by climatic depressions only. 



On the other hand I can agree with Geikie in his view that 

 the principal glacial period (Saxonian stage) is the second gla- 

 cial epoch, which had a predecessor in the so-called Scanian 

 stage. The undeniable proof of three extensive glaciations of 

 the Alps must awaken the suspicion that the north European 

 glacial period also possesses a threefold division, and this sus- 

 picion would be increased still more in the mind of the present 

 writer, by a number of other phenomena. The reason, however, 

 why the special surveying has so far produced no conclusive 

 evidence of a pre-Saxonian glacial period, lies simply in the fact 

 that the mapping has been confined almost exclusively to dis- 

 tricts in which no ground moraines of the inland ice of the 

 Scanian stage exists, but where the deposits of this epoch are 

 almost exclusively fluvio-glacial, and these for the most part 

 fine. It is known, morever, that such formations in north Ger- 

 many found due appreciation much later than those in the Alps, 

 and that today even eminent geologists, such as H. Credner, will 

 not acknowledge that they possess any demonstrative power. 

 What has led me to recognize in the lower sands and clays of 

 the Diluvium of middle north Germany the fluvio-glacial equiv- 

 alent of a glacial period older than that which deposited the 

 lower bowlder clay of the Mark, is the fact that between these 

 layers are to be found a flora and fauna which point to a mild, 

 temperate climate like that of today, if not indeed a warmer 

 one. Because, however, the underlying layers contain certain 

 northern material, such as feldspar, fragments of bryozoans, 

 flints, and occasionally even large bowlders, the conclusion is 

 not to be gainsaid that the ice lay at no very great distance from 

 the territories in which those northern sands were deposited. 

 The superimposed layers, however, contain a forest vegetation 

 with deciduous trees, a water vegetation with plants of southerly 



