Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 139 



2. CmisfOiDS. — A Trenton Eehinoderm Fauna at Kirkfield, Ontario 

 (Canada, Dept. Mines, Mem. 15 P., 1911), is discussed by Frank 

 Springer. It yielded forty or more species, most of which were 

 originally described by Elkanah Billings, but one is new ( Ottawacrinus 

 hilling si). 



3. Dr. A. H. Clark discusses the systematic position of Marsupites in 

 Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., xl, 649-54, 1911 ; and Springer has a paper on 

 the Crinoid fauna of the Knobstone formation in the same journal, 

 vol. xli, pp. 175-208. Dr. Clark considers Marsupites to have been 

 a pelagic comatalid and compares it and Uintacrinus with Antedon 

 and other crinoids which have pelagic stages. He insists that 

 Marsupites and Uintacrinus, unlike Antedon, were always, at all 

 stages, free-swimming animals. 



E.E1:F'0I?,TS ..A.ITID I^I?,OCE]E]IDi:tTG-S. 



Geological Society of London. 



January 10, 1912.— Professor W. W. Watts, Sc.D., LL.D., M.Sc, 



P. U.S., President, in the Chair. 



The following communication was read : — 



" On a Late Glacial Stage in the Vallej^ of the Piver Lea, subsequent 

 to the Epoch of Eiver-Drift Man." By S. Hazzledine Warren, P.G.S. 

 With Beports on the Plowering Plants, by Francis J. Lewis, M.Sc, 

 E.L.S.; on the Mosses, by H. jS^. Dixon, M.A., F.L.S. ; on the 

 Mollusca, by Alfred Santer Kennard, P.G-.S., and Bernard Barham 

 Woodward, F.L.S., F.G S. ; on the Coleoptera, by C. 0. Waterhouse, 

 I.S.O., F.E.S. ; on the Entomostraca, by D. J. Scourfield, F.R.M.S. ; 

 and on the Microscopic Examination of the Sandy Residue, by George 

 Macdonald Davies, F.G.S. 



The paper describes a carbonaceous deposit, discovered by the 

 author, which is embedded in the low-level Biver-Drift gravel of 

 the Lea Yalley, in the neighbourhood of Ponders End. It belongs 

 to the close of the Pleistocene Period, and is very much later than the 

 Moustierian deposits. It may be of Magdalenian age, but there is no 

 evidence to suggest this. It is more probably post-Magdalenian, 

 formed during the time of the supposed archaeological hiatus between 

 the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic Epochs. The deposit yields a varied 

 fauna and flora, which has been the subject of extended investigation. 

 The results of this are embodied in the reports which are appended to 

 the paper. The conclusions arrived at in these reports are in close 

 agreement with each other, and indicate climatic conditions similar to 

 those now found in Lapland. The evidence of this comparatively late 

 Arctic climate in the South of England is important. It throws much 

 light on many vexed questions, particularly with regard to the 

 relationship of Palaeolithic man to the Glacial Period. It ma^^ have 

 been the Arctic conditions represented by the Ponders End stage 

 (as it might appropriately be named) which caused the migration 

 of Palaeolithic man to less inclement regions. The correlation is also 

 suggested between the Ponders End stage and the 'Trail' of the 

 Eev. 0. Fisher. The evidence is further interesting, as showing 

 another important fluctuation of climate during the Pleistocene Period. 



