Vol.51.] AND INTERGLACIAL DEPOSITS IN SWITZERLAND. 383 



V. Conclusions. 



The age of the younger interglacial lignite- and gravel-deposits of 

 Uznach, Moersehwil, and of the Kander Valley admits of being 

 determined not only from stratigraphical and penological, but also 

 from palasontological evidence, such as the remains of Elephas anti- 

 quus and others found by Heer in the Diirnten and Wetzikon 

 lignites. But in the older fluvio-glacial and interglacial gravel- 

 deposits described in this paper — namely, those of the Uetliberg, 

 Baden, Gebensdorfer Horn, and Glutsch Valley, of the Lorze Valley 

 near Zug, and of the Kander Valley near Thun — no fossils have so 

 far been found, and their age can be fixed only by their stratigraphi- 

 cal position and petrological character, in conjunction with analo- 

 gous deposits in other parts. As regards the latter, the only fossil 

 so far met with in the plateau-gravel or Deckenschotter appears to 

 be Helix hisjoida, found by Dr. Schill 1 in the Cavernous Nagelfluh 

 of the Ueberlingen district (Grand Duchy of Baden), bordering on 

 the Lake of Constance. The only fossil so far found in the Decken- 

 schotter of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps appears to be a Helix 

 which Prof. Penck claims to have discovered in the Traun-Ems 

 district (Salzkammergut) 2 ; but the Upper Pliocene plateau-gravel 

 of the Bresse district near Lyons, called by French geologists 

 ' Alluvions anciennes des plateaux,' as distinguished from the 

 younger Alluvions des terrasses et des vallees,' contains, according 

 to Fontannes, 3 Elephas meridionalis and Mastodon arvernmsis ; and 

 fossils of the latter occur, according to Delafond, 4 also in the Rhone 

 Valley above Lyons — that is, in the sand- and gravel-deposits which 

 constitute the uppermost of the three gravel-terraces — and are found 

 in depressions of the Pliocene marl. As another analogous for- 

 mation may be regarded the Upper Pliocene ' alluvioni antichi ' of 

 Upper Italy, which, as already mentioned, Italian geologists have 

 long considered pre-Glacial in respect of the then accepted two 

 Pleistocene glaciations. 5 In Switzerland itself, the old deltas and 

 debris-cones of the Muotta at Iberg, near Brunnen, on the Lake of 

 Lucerne ; of the Engelberg Aa, near Buochs, on the same lake ; in 

 Savoy the Drance delta described by Morlot, 6 and other similar 

 deposits, as well as the loess along the base of the Jura, further swell 

 the number of fluvio-glacial and interglacial deposits, though the 

 exact age of their deposition has yet to be determined. 



1 ' Beschr. d. Umgegend von Ueberlingen', 1859. 



2 ' Oesterr. Alpen-Vorland,' 1890. 



3 Bull. Soc. geol. France, ser. 3, vol. xiii. (1884) p. 59. 

 1 Ibid. vol. xv. (1886) p. 65. 



B The Norwich Crag and Forest Bed formations may be regarded as probably 

 contemporaneous with the Pliocene or first glaciation and the Lower Pleistocene 

 or first interglacial period, showing that that part of Britain was not glaciated 

 in Pliocene times. 



6 Bull. Soc. Vaud. vol. iv. 1854. 



Q. J. G. S. No. 203. 2 b 



