E. H. Hoioorth — A Great Post- Glacial Flood. 225 



I believe that it was perfectly continuous from one area to the other. 

 Where we can trace its junction with the Loess distinctly, we find 

 that the latter has overlaiaped it, as we should in fact expect, if it 

 were poui-ed out over it, and it seems in every way very probable 

 that Central Europe was once covered with the same mantle of 

 loam that is found in France and Spain on the one hand, and the 

 Russian steppes on the other, which was buried under or mingled 

 with the Lower Loess when it was poured out. Traces of this 

 sophistication are not hard to find. Thus Mr. Belt has remarked 

 the continuity of the Loess and the so-called Diluvium in Austria ; 

 while Sir Charles Lyell says, speaking of the deposits of the valley 

 of the Neckar, near Tubingen, generally claimed as Loess, " I found 

 the fluviatile loam or brick-earth, inclosing the usual Helices and 

 Succinece together with the bones of the Mammoth, very distinct in 

 colour and composition from ordinary Ehenish Loess" (Antiquity of 

 Man, p. 380). 



This paper will be limited to the consideration of the zone of 

 loamy deposits, and in it we shall have nothing to say of the Drift 

 deposits, or those marked by boulders and erratics, but we must 

 limit ourselves still further. 



In Northern France the mantle of loam, as M. d'Archiac has shown 

 by numerous examples ; in South Britain, as is familiar enough to 

 those who have studied the surface deposits of Kent and Sussex, in 

 the case of the sophisticated loam that has mingled with the Loess 

 in Central Europe and also in Eussia, the loam overlies and is 

 spread over beds of gravel and sand. The succession has been very 

 much obscured in many places by denudation ; but where we can 

 examine it in an area that has not been much altered subsequently, 

 this is generally the result. The gravels and sands which underlie 

 the loamy strata form no part of our present subject. They are 

 often classed and treated together with the loam, and this is natural, 

 since there can be small doubt about their being contempoi'aneous ; 

 but it is convenient to treat them separately, and we shall in the 

 present paper limit ourselves entirely to the loamy deposits. 



These loamy deposits are known in a large part of France and 

 Belgium as Diluvium, Limon de Heshaye, Limon des plateaux, terre 

 a, briques, etc., and on our side of the Channel as Brick-earth. They 

 vary somewhat in character. In the case of the Diluvium, the loam 

 is mingled with sharp-edged flints, while these are largely absent 

 from the limon and the brick-earths ; but there can be no doubt that 

 the view generally held that all these loamy deposits are on one 

 horizon, and belong to one epoch, is well founded. They are all 

 marked by the presence of the same land shells, the bones of the 

 Mammoth and his companions, and, more important, by the more 

 specialized works of primitive man, and their difference of texture 

 can be easily explained. The first problem that has to be solved is, 

 what is the origin of these loams? and the next, how did they 

 come to be distributed as we now find them ? In regard to their 

 origin, the evidence is very much what it is in the case of the 

 Loess. The absence of marine or fluviatile debris, the presence of 



DECADE II. — VOL. IX. — NO. V. 15 



