54 PREHISTORIC E UR OPE. 



number of twenty-nine species in the Canstadt tufa, no fewer 

 than twelve are common to the tufas of the low grounds of 

 Southern Europe. These facts indicate, as Saporta has main- 

 tained, a climate more equable and humid than the present. 

 In short, the facts are in perfect keeping with the conclusions 

 to which the same botanist has come after a careful study of 

 the Pleistocene floras of Northern France and the Mediterranean 

 region. If, therefore, we were to draw our inferences solely from 

 those tufa deposits, we should be compelled to conclude that the 

 climate of our continent during the Pleistocene Period was 

 singularly genial. The winters must have been very mild, and 

 the atmosphere humid, to have permitted that peculiar distribu- 

 tion of plants which is evinced by the tufas of Central and 

 Southern Europe. But, as we shall learn presently, there are 

 certain accumulations of Pleistocene age which appear to con- 

 tradict these conclusions in the most emphatic manner. 



M. P. Eliche has described 1 a lignite of Pleistocene age 

 which occurs at Jarville, not far from Nancy, and thus as near 

 as may be in the same latitude as the tufa of La Celle. In this 

 lignite we not only find no trace of any southern species, but 

 the whole flora has a markedly northern facies. The trees 

 mentioned by M. Fliche are birch (probably Betula puhescens, 

 Ehrh.), green -leaved alder (Alnus viridis, Z.), mountain -pine 

 {Pinus montana, Du Eoi), larch (Larix eitrojpcea), spruce (Picea 

 excelsa), Pinus dbovata, and what seem to be juniper and yew — 

 all species which occur in Middle Europe only at high elevations 

 and in northern regions. The same lignite has yielded a number 

 of remains of insects, which are likewise northern forms. They 

 are Agonum gracile, Sturm ; Bemlidium nitidulum, Marsh. ; 

 B. oUusum, Sturm ; B. sp. ; Patrobus excavatus, Mononychus 

 23seudacori, Fabr. ; Adimonia ? 



In Switzerland, near the railway station of Schwerzenbach 

 (Canton of Zurich), a peat-bog has yielded a flora of a still more 

 pronounced northern character. 2 The peat itself is only a few 



1 Comptes Rendus de VAcad. des Sciences, t. lxxx. p. 1233. 

 2 Nathorst, Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetensh-ATcad. F'orhandl. , 1873, No. 6, p. 15. 



