45 8 Glacial Epoch. 



to feed on, and therefore they must have died out or 

 been banished from our area by that partial submerg- 

 ence, the rivers of which, under any climatic conditions, 

 could not have been sufficiently large to support 

 numerous Hippopotami. We find, however, that on 

 the re-elevation of the country, it must have been 

 reunited to the Continent, because the great hairy 

 elephant. Elephas primigenius, again appears, asso- 

 ciated with a number of other animals that, after the 

 re-elevation of the land, migrated from the Continent 

 of Europe to our area, the bones of which are found in 

 the old alluvia of rivers, partly of older and partly of 

 younger date than the Glacial period. If, as is often 

 stated, E.primigenius occur in the Forest-bed, then, in 

 the opinion of most of our geologists, it lived in the 

 British area before the beginning of the Glacial epoch, 

 and therefore I say that the Mammoth reappeared, and 

 as that great elephant is found in Scotland in early in- 

 ter-glacial strata, it seems by no means improbable that 

 he obtained a footing in our area in pre-glacial times. 



This, indeed, is only one of several migrations of 

 mammalia, that took place both from and into our country 

 during various episodes that occurred in the long- con- 

 tinued Glacial epoch. It was for some time the fashion 

 to attribute the occurrence in such superficial deposits 

 of what may be called conflicting faunas, to the annual 

 changes of summer and winter temperatures. In this 

 way it was attempted to account for the presence of 

 Lions, Hyaenas, Hippopotami, &c., in strata supposed 

 to be precisely of the same age with those that contain 

 the bones of Reindeer, Mammoths, Musk-sheep (Ovibos 

 tnoschatus), and White Bears. When the glaciers 

 and the cold declined in summer, and ice disappeared 

 from the rivers, then the Hippopotami made a raid to 



