260 James Geikie — On Changes of Climate. 



cave-bear), which Prof. Nilsson describes as underlying the Jara- 

 wall — a great ridge of sea-gravel extending " along the coast of the 

 Baltic from Ystad to the part between Trelleborg and Falsterbo." 

 If this ridge be an asar (as from the description may be inferred), 

 and should it prove to belong to the great asar series, this would 

 demonstrate that man had inhabited Sweden before the last great 

 submergence and period of floating-ice. 



Before leaving the subject of the superficial deposits of Italy, it 

 may be remarked that in the marl-beds and morainic turbaries of 

 Piedmont, the most ancient relics of man yet detected belong to the 

 neolithic and bronze periods — the Italian ])alajitte answering pre- 

 cisely to the Swiss pfalilbaiiten. The animal-remains associated with 

 the palafitte, are the dog, pig, horse, ox, goat, sheep, stag, roebuck, 

 boar, bear (Ursus arctos), etc. In none of the peat-mosses, alluvia, 

 or marl-beds, which are clearly of later date than the moraines, have 

 any of the old pachyderm^ occurred ; these have only been met 

 with hitherto in caves and in deposits of older date than the 

 moraines and the "Alpine Diluvium" upon which these latter rest.^ 



Similarly, as regards Switzerland, the alluvium that fills up de- 

 pressions in the morainic deposits, or otherwise occupies positions 

 which show it to be of postglacial age (that is, of later date than the 

 last great advance of the glaciers), contains none of the "Quatern- 

 ai-y" mammalia, but an assemblage of fossils similar to that of the 

 marl-beds and morainic turbaries of Italy. The Diirnten beds, with 

 elephant and rhinoceros, occupy, beyond question, an interglacial 

 position— they rest upon and are clearly covered by glacial deposits. 



In Scotland and Scandinavia similar phenomena recur. None of 

 the pachyderms are found in any postglacial bed ; but underneath the 

 till, and in interglacial beds, in the former country, we get the 

 mammoth, the reindeer, the urus, the horse, and the Irish deer ; and 

 in the latter country we find bones of the cave-bear along with palgeo- 

 lithic implements imbedded below deposits which are probably the 

 equivalents of our kames. 



The marl-beds, alluvia, and peat-mosses of Northern Europe, like 

 the equivalent deposits which overlie the later glacial accumulations 

 of Italy and Switzerland, have only yielded relics of the neolithic, 

 bronze, and iron periods. 



I would also remind the geologist of the very remarkable distri- 

 bution of the Quaternary mammalia in high latitudes of Asia and 

 North America. All the great rivers of Northern Asia, from the 

 borders of Europe to Behring's Straits, appear to flow through allu- 

 vial deposits, which are often literally packed with the remains of 

 mammoth, Siberian rhinoceros, etc. Similar fossils are met with, 

 but not so abundantly, on the banks of several rivers in Alaska. 

 But in the northern latitudes east of the Eocky Mountains no such 

 mammalian remains have been detected. According to Sir J. 

 Richardson, "none have hitherto been found in Eupert's Land, 

 though the annual waste of the banks of the large rivers and the 

 frequent land-slips would have revealed them to the natives or fur 

 1 Gastaldi, Lake Habitations and Prehistoric Remains in Italy. 



