Mitikin on the Quaternary Deposits of Russia, etc. 459 



Aet. LIII. — Nikitin on the Quaternary Deposits of Rus- 

 sia and their relations to Rrehistoric Man,' by A. A. 

 Weight. 



At the international Congress of archaeology in Moscow, in 

 1892, the Russian geologist, Mr. S. Nikitin, presented an 

 elaborate paper upon the above subject. A summary of his 

 views will be of interest in connection with the pending dis- 

 cussion upon the continuity of the Glacial epoch. The paper 

 opens as follows : " The terms ' Quaternary Period ' or ' Post- 

 tertiary ' with their subdivisions and geological equivalence in 

 the series of deposits, are far from being definitely settled by 

 science. At the latest sessions of the International Geological 

 Congress at London and Washington there was much debate 

 upon these questions without arriving at any definite results." 



It will be recalled by those present at the Washington ses- 

 sion that two distinct glacial epochs in Germany were argued 

 for by Dr. Wahnschaffe,* and similarly by Baron De Geer for 

 Sweden. On the other hand Professor Credner thought that 

 the stratified beds between deposits of till were only local, 

 indicating some retreat and re-advance of the ice-sheet, but no 

 interglacial epoch. Dr. Carl Diener suggested that intercala- 

 ted beds of sand were no positive proof of interglacial epochs, 

 as moraines, in the Austrian Alps, no more than twenty years 

 old, were covered with pasture. Dr. Hoist of Sweden, men- 

 tioned two moraines separated by interpolated sand, and thought 

 that they might both have been formed by the same ice-sheet. 

 A blue ground-moraine and a yellow upper-moraine were 

 deposited even in northern Sweden, where there is no indica- 

 tion of the retreat of the ice. Professor Hughes of Cambridge, 

 expressed his opinion that the Ice age was a single continuous 

 cold period, in England at least, except for slight and unim- 

 portant oscillations in the extent of the ice-sheet. 



Mr. Nikitin continues: "I do not pretend to solve this 

 ■complicated question ; but will confine myself to giving a brief 

 analysis of the signification and the meaning which I attribute 

 to this terminology. Under the name of Quaternary period 

 or Post-tertiary I include all the time since the close of the 

 Pliocene up to our day. I divide this period into two epochs, 

 the Pleistocene (earlier) and the modern epoch. The close of 

 the Pleistocene is characterized, as 1 conceive, by the disap- 

 pearance of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, and other large 

 mammals which are now wanting within the limits of Russia. 

 This subdivision coincides with that of many archaeologists 



*Am. Geol., viii, 241. 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Third Series, Vol. XLV, No. 270.— June, 1893. 

 32 



