Interglacial Periods, Si 
Evidence from the Mammoth in Europe.—Skeletons and 
detached remains of the Mammoth have been found in nearly 
every country in Europe. Mr. Howorth, in his memoir*, 
gives the details of the finding of these in various parts of 
Russia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, Eng- 
land, and other countries. It is shown that the conditions 
~ under which the Mammoth-remains have been found in Hurope 
are almost identically the same as those under which they are 
found in Siberia, with the exception, of course, that in Hurope 
no careases with their flesh intact have been met with. 
Again, the deposit in which the Mammoth-remains are 
found in Hurope is the same as that in which they occur in 
Siberia. The deposit is a freshwater one, consisting of marly 
clay and gravel, and containing plant-remains and land- and 
freshwater-shells. When these plants and shells are examined : 
they are found to indicate the same interglacial condition of 
climate as that which prevailed in Siberia during the time the 
Mammoth lived in that region. 
In the case of land-plants it is, of course, only under excep- 
tional circumstances, as Prof. J. Geikie remarks, that they can 
be found in a conditicn suitable for the botanist. Now and 
again, however, beds with well-preserved plants are met with, 
buried under lacustrine deposits. In a still better state of 
preservation are the plant-remains and shells which have been 
discovered in the masses of calcareous tufa which have been 
formed upon the borders of incrustating springs. An exami- 
nation of the plant-remains found under those conditions shows 
that during Pleistocene times, when the deposits in which the 
Mammoth bones are found were being formed, the climate was 
more equable and uniform than it is at the present day. 
The fossiliferous remains yielded by the tufas have led to 
most important results as to the climatic condition of the 
Pleistocene period, into the details of which I need not here 
enter. These will be found at full length in Prof. J. Geikie’s 
‘Prehistoric Hurope, chap. iv.f It will suffice at present 
simply to refer to the general conclusions to which these 
researches have led, in so far as they bear on the climatic 
conditions prevailing at the time the Mammoth lived so 
abundantly in EKurope. 
In the tufa deposits of Tuscany have been found numbers 
of plant-remains of indigenous species, commingled with 
others which now no longer grow in Tuscany. Amongst the 
latter is the Canary laurel, which now flourishes so luxuriantly 
in the Canary Islands, on the northern slopes of the mountains, 
* Geol. Mag. May 1881. 
+ See also Mr. Howorth’s memoir, Geol. Mag. June 1881, 
