468 Revieu's — Schar^'s Origin of the European Fauna. 



I^ IE ATI :e3 aat s. 



I, — On the Origin of the European Fauna. By R. F. Scharff, 

 Ph.D., B.Sc, F.Z.S., Keeper of the Natural History Collections in 

 the Dublin Museum of Science and Art. Proc. Eoy. Irish Acad., 

 3rd ser., yoI. iv, No. 3, 1897, pp. 427-514. 8vo. (Dublin, 1897.) 



[Continued from the September Number, page 427.) 



PURSUING his inquiry into the origin of the European Fauna, 

 Dr. Scharff advocates, with the Russian Naturalist Tcherski, 

 a mild climate in Pleistocene times for Northern Asia. 



The Climate of Siberia and Northern Russia during the Glacinl 

 Period. — "We have to choose between one of two alternatives 

 — either Northern Russia was covered by a mass of ice, and then 

 Siberia must have been practically uninhabitable, or the climate 

 of both Europe and Siberia were more temperate than it is 

 now. In the face of the numerous works which have been 

 written in recent years by Professor J. Geikie, Professor Penck, 

 Mr. Falsan, Professor Bonney, and many other distinguished 

 geologists, on the proofs of a cold and even Arctic climate in 

 Europe during the Glacial period, it may seem futile to doubt 

 what is put forward as a well-established fact. But with Tcherski 

 I have been led to conclude that Siberia had a comparatively mild 

 climate in Pleistocene times. Northern Europe could not, that 

 being the case, have been glaciated in the manner above described. 

 Before following the migrations of the Siberian fauna to Europe, 

 I must therefore dwell for a little while on the origin of the 

 Continental Boulder-clay." (p. 457.) 



Origin of t-Iie Boidder-clay. — " I think that I shall be able to advance 

 some additional evidence in favour of the view that the Boulder- 

 clay of Europe is a marine deposit, and that Northern Russia and 

 Germany were not covered by glaciers during the Pliocene or 

 Pleistocene epochs. 



" It has been urged by many writers, both on zoological and 

 geological grounds, that at some time during the Pleistocene epoch, 

 or perhaps even later, the White Sea and the Baltic were joined 

 across Northern Russia, and that then also the lowlands of Northern 

 Germany and those of Sweden and Norway were partially flooded. 

 The zoological evidence alone, that such a junction has taken place 

 within recent geological times, is very strong indeed." (p. 458.) 



" The assumption that the Arctic mollusca were admitted from 

 the Atlantic to the German Ocean before the deposition of the 

 Lower Boulder-clay, and then found their vf^y into the Baltic, is 

 altogether unwarranted. It is extremely probable that Scotland 

 was connected with Scandinavia till a much more recent period. 

 It is likely, therefore, that a marine transgression from the White 

 Sea took place at the time when the Aralo-Caspian extended 

 much further north than its present boundaries, that the Arctic 

 mollusca migrated from the Arctic Ocean direct to the Baltic, 

 where the Pre-Glacial deposits exhibit a curious intermingling of 



