476 Reviews — HowortKs Mammoth and the Flood. 



the highest importance, but that is not now put before us, the author 

 hoping to treat the geological side of the case fully and completely 

 in a subsequent volume, when he will discuss the cause of the 

 catastrophe and its extent. In the meantime he observes that "This 

 vast effort seems from inexorable evidence to have been due to the 

 exertion of some cataclysmic force by which the Earth's crust was 

 greatly disturbed, not merely locally, but over a large part of its 

 surface. It was in consequence of this dislocation that the loose 

 watery envelope which covers a large portion of the world was set 

 in motion, and sweeping over the land drowned and then buried 

 deep in gravel, loam and clay, hecatombs of living beings." 



All this is of course very vague and hypothetical. The relations 

 of the Mammoth and its companions to the Glacial period form an 

 exceedingly important subject, but the questions that Mr. Howorth 

 raises concerning them cannot be discussed until his second volume 

 comes to light. He however so far anticipates himself as to speak 

 of the Mammoth age as the true Grlacial epoch, and to remark that 

 he is " completely opposed to the extreme views urged in recent 

 years by Agassiz, Croll, James Geikie," and others, whose views he 

 regards as a " glacial nightmare." 



Nevertheless, whatever opinions be held with regard to the 

 relative influence of land-ice, coast-ice, and icebergs, there can be no 

 reasonable doubt that all agents have acted a part in the history of 

 the Glacial period. Moreover, that epoch must have lasted thousands 

 of years. The records of tumultuous deposits are interwoven with 

 those of quiescent deposits, and in a broad and general — we might 

 say poetic — way it would not be very rash to speak of this period as 

 Catastrophic. Compared with what is now going on in this country, 

 no doubt the Glacial period was decidedly catastrophic, and we feel 

 convinced that excessive denudation and deposition must have taken 

 place far and wide over the surface of our land. Indeed, we believe 

 with Mr. Howorth, that the Glacial period coincides generally with 

 that of Paleeolithic man ; and it is not unreasonable to suppose, as 

 Mr. Tiddeman has suggested, that extensive floods in those days 

 gave rise to the tradition of a Universal Deluge. More than this we 

 are not prepared to admit, nor can we agree with the author when 

 he says that " over much the largest portion of the earth's surface 

 which is covered and protected by herbage or forest, denudation is 

 not going on at all, but on the contrary liumus is being deposited in 

 a more or less slow fashion." This is a very misleading statement, 

 inasmuch as the author entirely neglects the effects of subterranean 

 denudation : for we need only point to the solid matter carried 

 away in solution and suspension by springs and rivers, much of 

 which sedimentary matter is derived from lands covered and protected 

 by herbage. There can be no doubt that the level of the land is in 

 places gradually lowered without the general surface contour being 

 visibly affected. 



Another point on which the author places considerable stress, is 

 that remains of animals are not now-a-days preserved to the extent 

 they were during " the Great Flood." The facts that " in Spitzbergen 



