3 2o PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



the rivers and streams dug deeply through it and the strata upon 

 which it rests. A genial climate ere long supervened, and horn- 

 beam, elm, oak, willow, ash, box, • etc., clothed the land, which 

 was tenanted by elephant (E. meridionalis), rhinoceros (JR. lepto- 

 rhinus), hippopotamus (H. major), tapir, horse, cave-bear, hyaena 

 (H. brevirostris), hedgehog, deer, etc., a fauna comparable with 

 that of the Italian and Swiss lignites. 



To this genial era succeeded another cold epoch, when a 

 glacier once more appeared in the neighbourhood of Perrier and 

 deposited its frontal moraine above the interglacial beds which 

 contain the remains of Mephas meridionalis and its congeners. 

 Similar moraines belonging to this last period of glaciation have 

 been traced in many different valleys throughout the great 

 plateau of Central France, and everywhere they give evidence of 

 having been preceded at some former time by much more 

 extensive mers de glace. The older moraines had been washed 

 down, eroded, and deeply trenched, and the strata upon which 

 they repose had likewise been worn and profoundly furrowed by 

 streams and rivers long before the latest glaciers had come into 

 existence. Everything conspires to show that the genial inter- 

 glacial epoch was long-continued. I may add that in certain 

 fluviatile deposits, which M. Pomel has shown to be of the same 

 age as the youngest moraines of Puy-de-Dome and Cantal, 

 remains of the mammoth have been detected. Dr. Julien 

 remarks that the more recent volcanic rocks of Central France 

 are surmounted by " stations " of the so-called Eeindeer period. 

 No fragments of these rocks occur in the " pumiceous conglom- 

 erate," and the volcanos, therefore, must have broken out after 

 the disappearance of the earlier and greater glaciers, and before 

 the close of the Old Stone Age. In other words, the most 

 recent display of volcanic activity in Central France occurred 

 during a late interglacial epoch. 



In Central France, then, we have the following succession as 

 determined by Dr. Julien : — 



1. Miocene lacustrine beds. 



2. Trachytes and basalts. 



