510 Dr. Nils Olof Hoist — The Ice Age in England. 



The oscillation in question appears still more clear in the East of 

 England at Kirrnington, in the northern part of Lincolnshire, and at 

 Elamborough in Yorkshire. Here are found beds with marine 

 molluscs between an older and a younger moraine, affording sufficient 

 proof of the existence of the oscillation ; and it is not too bold 

 a prophecy to assert that the future will yield many further proofs, 

 even though they be not so clear as the sections at Kirmington and 

 Flarnborough. It is convenient to give this oscillation a special 

 name in England also, and since it is so well known from Kirmington, 

 the name " Kirmington oscillation " seems not inappropriate. 



There now remains the question : Where does the third zone, the 

 post-glacial zone begin ? On the Continent the circumbaltic terminal 

 moraine affords an approximately southern limit for it. This terminal 

 moraine may be, and has been, traced from Russia, through the whole 

 of Northern Germany and Jutland, down to the east coast of the 

 North Sea. Can it be supposed that it is not to be found again on 

 the west side of the North Sea ? I have long had the suspicion, not 

 to say firm belief, that the two fine terminal moraines which pass 

 from the city of York in a north-easterly direction to the east coast 

 of England, and are after the usual fashion of these large terminal 

 moraines in connexion with large sandy plains, constitute this very 

 continuation on the English side. The mapping by the Geological 

 Survey ends, however, just by the city of York, and the westerly 

 continuation of the terminal moraines is therefore not known, but 

 certainly it will be possible to find it. Probably it will be traceable, 

 not only through England, but also across the whole of Ireland. The 

 phenomenon is far too vast a one to come to a capricious and sudden 

 end. The task of tracing these important terminal moraines down to 

 the Atlantic seaboard would be no unprofitable one, but I must leave 

 it in the hands of my English and Irish colleagues. 



This section on the great and geologically important distinction 

 between the Intermediate and post-glacial zones cannot be brought 

 to a more appropriate conclusion than by reprinting the following 

 utterance by Boyd Dawkins : 1 "... Cumberland, Westmoreland, 

 Lancashire, and the greater portion of Yorkshire are represented as 

 being one of these barren areas, in which no pleistocene mammalia 

 have been observed. It is obvious that the hysenas, bears, mammoths, 

 and other creatures found in the pleistocene stratum could not have 

 occupied the district when it was covered by ice ; and had they lived 

 soon after the retreat of the ice-sheet, their remains would occur in 

 the river-gravels, from which they are absent throughout a large area to 

 the north of a line drawn between Chester and York, whilst they occur 

 abundantly in the glacial river deposits south of that line." 



This was printed in 1874. It could not then be known, as we now 

 know, that this so-called ' line ' is really the great Magdalenian zone 

 of demarcation between- the Intermediate stage, with the hyaena and 

 mammoth still existing, 2 and the post-glacial period when these 

 creatures were extinct. 



1 W. Boyd Dawkins, 1874. Cave Hunting, pp. 123-4. The italics are mine. 



2 The mammoth skeleton which was found a few years ago at Borna, near 

 Leipzig, together with Arctic plant-remains, belongs to the older part of the 

 Intermediate zone. 



