1891.] Archeology and Ethnology. 391 
2. The great Glacial age. In England and in Norfolk the boulder 
clay, that is evidence of the grand Glacial epoch, is above the forest 
n consequence, the depots at Chelles and Montreuil, which con- 
tain the animals of a warm temperate climate, do not correspond with 
the earlier epoch of Plistocene that followed the age of the forest 
bed. M. Gaudry supposed this to be a depot of the interglacial age of 
Rixdorf ; and that it is, in any event, a Plistocene deposit, not rela- 
tively of antiquity. : 
3. The cutting of the valleys, The theory of Prestwich was that 
the Plistocene deposits, the most elevated, are the most ancient. In 
general this ought to be true in France. The locality of Vaucresson, 
150 metres above the sea, of Montreuil-sous-Bois, too metres, both of 
a Quaternary period, very ancient, contemporaneous with the grand 
glaciers of the north of Europe, and characterized by abundant 
remains of reindeer, mammoth, and the wooly rhinoceros associated 
with chipped flints, are illustrations, The Chelléen of Bas Montreuil, 
and of Chelles with deer, Rhinoceros merkii, Elephas antiquus, are 
grand interglacial depots, during which the climate became warmer, 
and the melting of the gigantic masses of glacial ice produced immense 
erosion. Finally, M. Gaudry believed that the alluvium of the lower 
level, where they find the mammoth, reindeer, and the Rhinoceros 
tichorhinus, represents a return of the cold. 
It was contested that if the valley of the Seine was cut in the begin- 
ning of the Quaternary epoch, the Chelléen ought to be more 
ancient than the depot of Haut-Montreuil. It was necessary that the 
Stratigraphic geologist should mark in a precise and indisputable man- 
ner the age of the cutting and the depots of our valleys of the Seine. 
Professor Geikie, the Scotch geologist, sent a paper on this subject, 
which was read. The relative positions of the fluvial strata of a valley 
do not necessarily indicate their antiquity, and the elevated strata are 
not necessarily the most ancient. In certain cases there have been 
grave exaggerations of fluvial cutting accomplished during the Pleisto- 
cene times. Our grand valleys in Scotland were cut before the 
Glacial period, and at an epoch which M. Geikie does not dare to fix 
with precision. These valleys continued to be cut during the 
Pleistocene period. Those which are in the region covered by the 
iers have naturally escaped this action. As for the levels of the 
gravels, the inferior or lower ones simply indicate a normal state of the 
water-course, as the superior or higher ones testify to the torrential 
action of the river. We do not possess any serious or certain knowl- 
edge that will permit us to calculate the degree of cutting operation in 
