232 Scientific Intelligence. 
prevalence of smoothed and striated stones showing that the de- 
posits referred to ree - have been derived from rocks above the 
level of the mer de g 
That one ae. ‘of glacial action was the erosion of rock- 
basins. 
(6.) That intense glacial conditions were interrupted by inter- 
vening periods characterized by mild and even genial climates,— 
the change es of climate being indirectly due to the precession of 
the equinoxes, which, during a period of extreme eccentricity, 
would gradually cause the bier: to shift from one SP to the 
her. 
ia; on the continent oe similar deposits; in America y 
tiers of ents 9 with buried trees and extinct mammalia. 
(8.) That the intermingling of northern and southern forms in 
the caves and river-gravels points rather to former oscillations of 
climate than to periods of strongly-contrasted summers an win- 
ters,—the arctic mammalia indicating both the gradual approach 
and the disappearance of "placlal conditions ; the southern forms 
being memorials of genial climatal conditions by which the cold 
or glacial periods were interrupted. 
(9.) That the earlier stage of the — epoch embraced several 
cold and warm periods; but how many re mutilated nature 0 
the records does not at present daable ‘a us to 
(10.) That the climate of the earlier cold sarod was more severe 
ne Pes became in de gcse glacial periods of the same Brees 
(13.) That this continental condition of Britain may have super 
vened at a time when the climate was cold and ungenial, and the 
arctic mammalia may then have revisited our land. 
(14.) That the upheaval of land in the north of Europe, W which rs 
joined Britain to the continent, was accompanied by a correspoD 
ing depression in the south. 
(15.) That during this movement a large part of Italy was SU ‘ll 
merged, and deposits of sand filled up the rock- basins, which in ny 
probability had been sil oe out in former ice-ages at the mout 
of certain Nr gn valleys that open ee the plains of Piedmo ny : 
(16.) That the fossils of these sands indicate a sel ne id 
the Mediterranean similar to bers obtains at présent. 
(17.) That during this depression in the south of ‘Europe con- 
tinental Britain attained to the enjoyment of a mild climate. 
