GLACIAL SUCCESSION IN EUROPE". 141 



the same character as the yet higher-level fluviatile terrace, which is associated in like 

 manner with the marine deposits of the 100-feet beach. 



Of contemporaneous age with the Carse-clays, with which indeed they are continuous, 

 are the raised beaches at 45-50 feet. These beaches occur at many places along the 

 Scottish coasts, but they are seldom seen at the heads of our sea-lochs. When the sea 

 stood at this level, glaciers of considerable size occupied many of our mountain valleys. 

 In the west they came down in places to the sea-coast, and dropped their terminal 

 moraines upon the beach-deposits accumulating there. Thus, in Arran * and in Suther- 

 land^ these moraines are seen reposing on the raised beaches of that epoch. And I 

 think it is probable that the absence of such beaches at the heads of many of the sea- 

 lochs of the Highland area is to be explained by the presence there of large glaciers, 

 which prevented their formation. 



Thus, there is clear evidence to show that after the genial epoch represented by the 

 "lower buried forest," a recrudescence of glacial conditions supervened in Scotland. 

 Many of the small moraines that occur at the heads of our mountain valleys, both in the 

 Highlands and Southern Uplands, belong in all probability to this epoch. They are 

 characterised by their very fresh and well-preserved appearance. J It is not at all likely 

 that these later climatic changes could have been confined to Scotland. Other regions 

 must have been similarly affected. But the evidence will probably be harder to read 

 than it is with us. Had it not been for the existence of our "lower buried forest," with 

 the overlying Carse-deposits, we could hardly have been able to distinguish so readily 

 between the moraines of our " third " glacial epoch and those of the later epoch to which 

 I now refer. The latter, we might have supposed, simply marked a stage in the final 

 retreat of the antecedent great valley-glaciers. 



I have elsewhere traced the history of the succeeding stages of the Pleistocene period, and 

 adduced evidence of similar, but less strongly-marked, climatic changes having followed 

 upon those just referred to, and my conclusions have been supported by the independent 

 researches of Professor Blytt in Norway. But these later changes need not be considered 

 here. It is sufficient for my general purpose to confine attention to the well-proved 

 conclusion that after the decay of the last local ice-sheets and great glaciers of our " third" 

 glacial epoch genial conditions obtained, and that these were followed by cold and humid 

 conditions, during the prevalence of which glaciers re-appeared in many mountain valleys. 



We have thus, as it seems to me, clear evidence in Europe of four glacial epochs, 

 separated the one from the other by protracted intervals of genial temperate conditions. 

 So far, one's conclusions are based on data which cannot be gainsaid, but there are certain 

 considerations which lead to the suspicion that the whole of the complex tale has not yet 

 been unravelled, and that the climatic changes were even more numerous than those that 

 I have indicated. Let it be noted that glacial conditions attained their maximum during 



* British Association Reports (1854) : Trans, of Sections, p. 78. 



t L. Hinxman: Paper read before Edin. Geol. Soc, April 1892. 



| Prehistoric Europe (chaps, xvi. xvii.) gives a fuller statement of the evidence. 



