REVIEW OF OLD AND NEW STANDARDS OF PLEISTOCENE DIVISION 423 



to have solved the problem in its entirety — a complex problem, in which it is 

 necessary to interweave at one time (1) the chronology of marine deposits, 



(2) the phenomena of valley trenching and the formation of alluvial terraces, 



(3) the glacial phenomena, (4) the succession of terrestrial animal faunas, 

 and (5) the facts of human paleontology and prehistoric archeology." 



Deperet concludes that, in making a choice between these diverse 

 criteria, he finds himself logically obliged to apply to the Quaternary the 

 method of classification which has prevailed for all the other geologic 

 epochs, namely, of giving primary weight to the characters furnished by 

 the ancient marine shorelines (lignes de rivage) and their contained 

 invertebrate fossils, making due allowance for the fact that certain 

 species of invertebrates, ancient and modern, live well below the surface 

 of the sea. 



He selects the Mediterranean as the most thoroughly studied, from the 

 point of view of Quaternary movements and deposits, and refers to earlier 

 work of the Italian geologists (Seguenza, Stefani) and more recent work 

 of Grignoux in determining the terminal stage of the Upper Pliocene as 

 the Calabrian. He makes as the first stage of the post-Pliocene, or true 

 Quaternary, the Sicilian, a term which in some of his earlier writings 

 he applied to the Upper Pliocene (compare Osborn, 1910.1, page 305, 

 after Deperet). 



De Lamothe (1899.1, 1901.1, 1911.1, 1916.1, 1918.1) has established on 

 the shores of Algeria and Tunis a series of shorelines {lignes de rivage), 

 arranged in descending levels, which correspond with advancing geologic 

 time, as follows : 



Continental Shoreline Levels of the West Mediterranean, African Coast, 



de Lamothe 



Pleistocene 



f 18-20 meters [= Monastirian Stage — Deperet, Monastir, Tunis. 

 28-30 meters [= Tyrrhenian Stage — Issel, Stromous horizon. 



Quaternary. 



or J 55-60 meters [= Milazzian Stage — Deperet, Milazzo, northern 



? Pliocene. ■< 



Sicily. 

 90-100 meters [= Sicilian Stage — Doderlein, Palermo, Sicily. 



" 148 meters — Ancient marine shorelines, Algeria and Tunis, 



North Africa. 

 204 meters. 

 265 meters. 

 325 meters. 



Deperefs interpretation (1918.1) is that, while the most elevated of 

 these marine deposits should be attributed to the end of the Pliocene, 

 there is no doubt that the last four shorelines (namely, 100 meters, 60 

 meters, 30 meters, 18 meters) belong to the Quaternary. Deperet says 



