ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ixiil 



the northern drift that do not belong to the rocks that lie imme- 

 diately beneath it, but must have come from a distance, all point to the 

 former existence of northern land now submerged. If during the 

 existence of the glacial sea, " it was the epoch of glaciers and ice- 

 bergs, of boulders and groovings," there must have been a mountain- 

 ous northern land with deep valleys in which the glaciers could be 

 formed, and terminating in the sea, so that icebergs could be de- 

 tached ; the mountains supplying the fragments of rock that were 

 rounded into boulders and ground into gravel, sand and mud, and 

 also the fragments fixed in the icebergs which caused the groovings. 

 How otherwise can we suppose the cold of the glacial epoch to have 

 been created, except by the existence of a continent of greatly ele- 

 vated land in high northern latitudes ? Can we suppose the existing 

 land of Norway and Sweden adequate to produce such effects ? 



The Fifths or General Flora. — At the close of the glacial period, 

 our author believes another great change to have taken place ; that 

 the bed of the glacial sea was gradually upheaved, and along with it 

 the islands that were scattered in that sea, the elementary parts of 

 the future Britain and Ireland, so that continuous land arose where 

 sea had been before and where sea again is, the area of the present 

 German Ocean forming then extensive plains over which the great 

 mass of the existing flora and fauna of the British Isles migrated 

 from the Germanic region of the continent. How far northwards 

 this land extended it is now impossible to say, but we find fragments 

 of it bordering the seaside, even to the farthest parts of the main- 

 land of Scotland. It linked Britain with Germany and Denmark, 

 and a corresponding plain united Ireland with England. As a great 

 part of the area, previously occupied by water, now became land, the 

 banishment of a number of species necessarily took place, many of 

 which, in consequence of the change of conditions arising from the 

 causes of their expulsion, retired for ever. 



In the 'History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds' by Professor 

 Owen, to the recent publication of which I briefly referred in my 

 address of last year, we have the full expression of his belief of the 

 irresistible demonstration afforded by the fossil remains which form 

 the subject of that valuable work, that during the period' now under 

 consideration Great Britain and Ireland formed continuous land with 

 France. He informs us, that in his endeavour to trace the origin of 

 our existing mammalia, he has been led to view them as descendants 

 of a fraction of a peculiar and extensive mammalian fauna which 

 overspread Europe and Asia, at a period geologically recent, yet in- 

 calculably remote and long anterior to any evidence or record of the 

 human race : that the fact of the Pliocene Fossil Mammalia of Eng- 

 land being almost as rich in generic and specific forms as those of 

 Europe, leads to the inference that the intersecting branch of the 

 ocean which now divides this island from the continent did not then 

 exist, as a barrier to the migration of the Mastodons, Mammoths, 

 Hippopotamuses, Rhinoceroses, Bisons, Oxen, Horses, Tigers, Hyae- 

 nas, Bears, &c., which have left such abundant traces of their former 

 existence in the superficial deposits and caves of Great Britain : that 



