188 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



" It is true that it attains in these its greatest thick- 

 ness, but extensive accumulations may often be followed 

 far into the intermediate hilly districts and over the 

 neighbouring plateaux. Thus the Odenwald, the Taunus, 

 the Vogelgebirge, and other upland tracts, are cloaked 

 with loess up to a considerable height. Crossing into the 

 drainage system of the Danube, we find that this large 

 river and many of its tributaries flow through vast tracts 

 of loess. Lower Bavaria is thickly coated with it, and it 

 attains a great development in Bohemia, Upper and Lower 

 Austria, and Moravia — in the latter country rising to an 

 elevation of 1,300 feet. It is equally abundant in Hun- 

 gary, Galicia, Bukowina, and Transylvania. From the 

 Danubian flat lands and the low grounds of Galicia it 

 stretches into the valleys of the Carpathians, up to 

 heights of 800 and. 2,000 feet. In some cases it goes 

 even higher — namely, to 3,000 feet, according to Zeusch- 

 ner, and to 4,000 or 5,000 feet, according to Korzistka. 

 These last great elevations, it will be understood, are 

 in the upper valleys of the northern Carpathians. In 

 Roumania loess is likewise plentiful, but it has not been 

 observed south of the Balkans. East of the Carpa- 

 thians — that is to say, in the regions watered by the 

 Dniester, the Dnieper, and the Don — loess appears also 

 to be wanting, and to be represented by those great 

 steppe-deposits which are known as Tcliernozen, or black 

 earth." * 



The shells found in the loess indicate both a colder and 

 a wetter climate during its deposition than that which now 

 exists. The relics of land animals are infrequently found 

 in the deposit, yet they do occur, but mostly in fragment- 

 ary condition — the principal animals represented being 

 the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the reindeer, and the horse; 

 which is about the same variety as is found in the gravel 



* Prehistoric Europe, pp. 144-146. 



