250 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



Ice Age are closely bound together, so much so as to lead to 

 the conviction that the latter can be nothing less than merely 

 a stage or phase of the former. All the evidence, palaeonto- 

 logical and physical alike, points in this direction, and assures 

 us beyond the possibility of any doubt that the advent of an 

 arctic flora in Central Europe, and of reindeer and musk-sheep, 

 etc., in Southern France, coincided with the appearance of a 

 vast mer de glace in Northern Europe, and with the great 

 extension of glaciers in Switzerland and other mountainous 

 regions in the middle and southern portions of our continent. 

 And since we know that Palaeolithic man lived with the 

 northern mammalia while they were in occupation of low 

 latitudes in Europe, we must perforce admit that man was 

 certainly contemporaneous with the Glacial Period. 



But it will not be forgotten that the Pleistocene Period was 

 also marked daring one of its phases by extremely genial con- 

 ditions, when southern species of plants advanced far north of 

 their present range, and when hippopotamuses, elephants, rhino- 

 ceroses, and other southern forms, commingled in North-western 

 Europe with a group of mammalia like that which characterises 

 the present more temperate latitudes of our continent. Further- 

 more, we found reason for believing that cold climatic conditions 

 prevailed towards the close of the Pleistocene Period. It is 

 from a consideration of the facts upon which these conclusions 

 are based that many geologists, particularly in France and 

 Germany, have concluded that the Pleistocene Period began 

 with a mild and genial climate, which gradually became deterio- 

 rated, until eventually it was brought to a close with the Ice 

 Age. They therefore maintain that Palaeolithic man and the 

 Pleistocene mammalia belong to preglacial and glacial times. 

 In England, on the other hand, the views which were, and per- 

 haps still are, generally held by geologists, differ in essential 

 respects from those of many Continental writers. English 

 geologists quite admit that Palaeolithic man may have hived in 

 North-western Europe in preglacial times, although they think 

 this has not yet been demonstrated. But many, following 





