Bemetvs — Riitchinson's Prehistoric Man and Beast 79 



Chapter II contains an excellent account of "Ancient Cave- 

 dwellers," and the author very properly remarks that " The whole 

 question of the true or exact age of the older deposits of British and 

 other caves is still more or less siih judice." At the same time 

 he says " it is generally believed that Palgeolithic man, and the 

 extinct animals with which he is associated, lived here [in the 

 north] when all our valleys, as far south as the Thames, were 

 occupied by glaciers, and the higher grounds by snowfields." This 

 IS far from the case. The Boulder-clay, which is considered newer 

 than some of the Cave-deposits in the north of England, is itself 

 almost certainly newer than the Chalky Boulder-clay, which, 

 occurring as far south as the Thames Valley, has been found at one 

 place beneath the Thames Valley-gravel. In the previous chapter 

 (p. 22) the author is inclined to take the view held by Prestwich, 

 that the old river-gravels with Palaeolithic implements were formed 

 during the latest phase of the Glacial period ; and recent evidence 

 supports the view that the implements are newer than the Chalky 

 Boulder-clay. Chapter 111 is devoted to " The Eeindeer Hunters " ; 

 and then in Chapter IV we have the least satisfactory portion of the 

 book, entitled "The Myth of the Great Ice Sheet, and Theories of 

 the Flood." In this chapter the author's usually calm and 

 considerate treatment of facts and opinions seems to have 

 deserted hiin. He has evidently been upset by "The Glacial 

 Nightmare and the Flood." Curiously enough he speaks in his 

 Preface "of the clever special pleading of Prof. James Geikie 

 and Sir Eobert Ball," and now he follows the lead of "that valiant 

 but most courteous fighter," Sir Henry Howorth ! The idea of 

 a great Polar ice-cap has been repugnant to some who are not 

 simply critics, but observers of Glacial phenomena ; yet the extent 

 of ice in the Arctic regions now can hardly be considered as 

 a test of that which may have been present during the Glacial 

 period. The magnitude that has sometimes been assigned to old 

 ice-sheets may be curtailed, but the facts of the extensive glaciation 

 remain. It is well to remember that every view, when new, is 

 apt to be somewhat exaggerated by authors and their disciples. 

 Opinions differ with regard to the number and importance of milder 

 inter- Glacial episodes, and also with regard to the actual extent of 

 the maximum land-glaciation. If, however, in our interpretation of 

 these Pleistocene phenomena, we had to choose between the most 

 extreme of Glacial and the mildest of Diluvial hypotheses, we 

 should have no hesitation in saying that the former was far more in 

 accord with facts. 



Happily our author is not led away into advocating any universal 

 Deluge. He readily admits the evidence of glaciation, though not, 

 apparently, to the extent that is generally taughtand generally accepted! 

 It IS, however, not entirely easy to reconcile all his statements. He 

 remarks that " land-ice in the form of glaciers is generally believed 

 to have had more to do with forming the drift deposits than 

 anything else." He admits "a modest local or British ice-sheet 

 formed by confluent glaciers," and he gives an excellent description of 



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