ARCTIC INTERGLACIAL PERIODS. 187 



that in Europe no carcases with their flesh intact have 

 been met with. 



Again, the deposit in which the mammoth remains 

 are found in Europe is the same as that in which 

 they occur in Siberia. The deposit is a fresh-water 

 one, consisting of marly clay and gravel, and contain- 

 ing plant remains and land and fresh-water 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 

 exceptional circumstances, as Professor J. Geikie 

 remarks, that they can be found in a condition 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 preser- 

 vation 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 examination 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 con- 

 dition of the Pleistocene period, into the details of 

 which I need not here enter. These will be found at 

 full length in Professor J. Geikie's " Prehistoric 

 Europe," Chapter IV.* 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 Europe. 



* See also Mr. Howorth's memoir, "Geol. Mag.," June, 1SS1. 



