Short Notices. 179 



entered our country as early at least as the elephant and hippopota- 

 mus ; and the southern mammalia, as he had shown, could not have 

 lived in Britain in Postglacial times. Seeing, therefore, that man 

 was undoubtedly contemporaneous with these animals, we could not 

 resist the conclusion that he dated back to interglacial ages. It 

 could not, indeed, be demonstrated that he occupied our caves during 

 the earlier warm periods of the glacial epoch, but the evidence was 

 decisive as to his presence in Britain during the last mild Interglacial 

 age. And such being the case, he must have been the witness of 

 several grand geological revolutions. During the last interglacial 

 period he entered Britain at a time when our country was joined to 

 Europe ; at a time when our winters were still severe enough to 

 freeze over the rivers in the south of England ; at a time when 

 glaciers nestled in our mountain valleys. He lived here long enough 

 to witness a complete change of climate — to see the arctic mammalia 

 vanish from England and the hippopotamus and its congeners take 

 their place. At a later date, and while a mild climate still continued, 

 he beheld the sea slowly gain upon the land, until, little by little, 

 the whole country was submerged as far south as the valley of the 

 Thames — a submergence which reached in Wales and Scotland to 

 the extent of 2,000 feet or thereby. At the same time a great de- 

 pression drowned all the low grounds of Northern Europe. When 

 this depression had reached or nearly reached a climax, the last 

 glacial period began. Intense arctic cold converted the few islets 

 which then represented Britain into a frozen archipelago. From the 

 ice-foot that clogged the shores fleets of rafts set sail, and as they 

 journeyed on dropt angular blocks over the bottom of the sea. And 

 where was palaeolithic man at this time ? Perhaps in the south of 

 Europe, but surely not in England. Mr. Geikie then described the 

 later changes, and showed how upon the re-elevation of the land 

 Britain was again joined to the continent. It was during this last 

 continental condition of our island that neolithic man and the 

 animals with which he was associated made their appearance. Pa- 

 laeolithic man and the southern mammalia had, as far as Britain was 

 concerned, vanished for ever. This was the explanation he gave 

 of the great break that separated the new stone age from the old 

 stone age. The one age was marked off from the other by a vast 

 lapse of time — by a time sufficient for the submergence and re- 

 elevation of a large part of Northern Europe, and a great change of 

 climate. — Liverpool Daily Albion, February 1st, 1873. 



III. — Short Notices. 

 1. — Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



At a meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 

 Prof. Cope exhibited the cranium of the horned Proboscidian of 

 Wyom ng Loxolo2)hodon cornutus, and made some remarks on its 

 affinities. The short-footed Un;2;ulate8 or / rohoscidia are represented 

 by two very different families in the Eocene formations of North 



