208 H. H. Howorth—The Fauna and Flora of the Loess. 
inaccessible to us. No doubt in earlier geological periods, in the 
Middle Tertiary age for instance, it is possible that such an extension 
existed ; but that it did so when the Mammoth lived here, and when 
the beds on the same horizon with the Loess were being deposited, 
is it seems to me entirely contrary to the evidence. The presence of 
Marine shells mixed with the Mammoth remains in the diluvium of 
the lower Somme—their presence at Selsea—their presence again on 
the Yorkshire coast in conjunction with the Mammoth—point to the 
sea at this period not having been far away from the present coast- 
lines. It is quite true that the evidence is tolerably complete that 
England was then united to the Continent; but this was by an 
isthmus, and it is certainly going deep down into the abysses of 
conjecture when, in the face of these facts, we place the western 
coasts of Europe during the Mammoth period at the present hundred- 
fathom line, as Baron Richthofen does, or indefinitely ‘further west 
and north-west,” as Dr. Nehring does. 
Let me quote another sentence from Dr. Nehring’s paper. He says, 
“The Mammoth is, as Professor Boyd Dawkins has already pointed 
out, Pre-Glacial, Glacial, and Post-Glacial ; his remains occur not 
only in the Loess, but in the most varied deposits of Europe, as in 
the Forest-bed, in Glacial gravel layers, in clay and loam, in Tuff 
deposits.” Dr. Nehring is surely not aware of the very thin ice 
upon which he is skating in this passage. Whether the Mammoth is 
found in the Forest-bed or not is assuredly one of the most disputed 
points in. English geology. The evidence seems to point most cer- 
tainly to its not occurring in the Forest-bed in situ at all, and that I 
believe to be the matured opinion of those geologists who have the 
best right to decide such a point. In regard to the Mammoth being 
Pre-Glacial, I altogether dispute it according to our present lights. 
The evidence is of the most fragile and unsatisfactory kind, so fragile 
that it is not surprising my gifted friend Professor Dawkins, who is 
quoted by Dr. Nehring, has published more than one opinion on the 
subject. As to the Mammoth being Inter-Glacial I shall have a 
good deal to say, if my friend Dr. Woodward will permit me to 
continue the series of papers I have been writing in the GroLocicaL 
Macazing. At present, I can only say that I believe the Mammoth 
and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus to have been, at all events in Europe, 
so far as we at present know, entirely Post-Glacial, and I maintain 
that they are the characteristic quadrupeds of the Post-Glacial Ante- 
Neolithic deposits. When Dr. Nehring in the above passage speaks 
of clay and loam and tuff, and he might have added brick-earth and 
valley gravels, as if they were entirely different deposits, he is only 
of course speaking of their texture. He does not dispute, I take it, 
the view which is so universally adopted, that, whether in the form of 
brick-earth, so-called diluvium or Loess, all these beds are on the 
same horizon, mark the same great epoch, and are to be largely 
explained by the operation of the same causes. They mark geo- 
graphical areas and local circumstances, but their differences in no 
wise mark successive epochs or periods. If he considers they do 
so, it would be most valuable to have the evidence produced. 
