1891.] Archeology and Ethnology. 499 
ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY.! 
The International Congress of Anthropology and Pre- 
historic Archeology of Paris, 1889.—( Continued from page 395.) 
Il.— Second Question : ‘* The Periodicity of Glacial Phenomena.”’ 
Mr. Geikie’s paper had been real earlier in the session. 
Marquis de Saporta opposed the theories of Mr. Geikie. He saw no 
evidence in the fossil flora of a periodic return of the cold climate. 
The periodicity of this phenomona, according to his idea, only showed 
the oscillations. ‘‘ There is,” he said, ‘in all this a mass of concord- 
`- ant facts which we are at this time far from being able to under- 
stand or analyze.” He doubted whether the learning of the geologists 
had served to elucidate the question in any degree. 
Le Docteur Garrigou presented a memoir by which he sought to 
establish the multiplicity of glacial movements in the Pyrenees. 
Monsieur Marcellin Boule said it was necessary that the savants of 
all countries should make study of this question, and bring closer 
together and face to face the accurate evidence of detailed facts which 
were necessary to solve the problem. In his opinion the Glacial 
epoch had commenced at least as early as the Pliocene ; that it was not 
localized, nor did it belong to the end of the Plistocene. The 
glaciers had successively covered and abandoned, and again recovered, 
vast regions, and instead of being continuous were periodic. The 
question could be solved only in a general fashion, but he desired 
to put on record his opinion that the question of the glaciers, the cut 
ting and filling of the valleys, and the formation of the caverns all 
belong together, were but one, must stand or fall together, and any 
studies made of the one which neglects the other will only be partial, 
and therefore may be erroneous. His (Boule’s) conclusions regarding 
the caverns were as follows: 1. That the most ancient deposits are the 
alluvials of the water which had eroded and made the valleys, and that 
the antiquity of these deposits was in direct relation to the altitude of 
the cavern above the valley. 2. That the deposits of the rivers, poor 
in fossils, are nearly always cut up, carried down, and replaced by new 
deposits coming from later erosions. 3. That the fossils found in this 
newer deposit belong to the late Plistocene; those from the earlier 
Plistocene are rarely found in it ; and such as are found are, by reason 
of the erosion and redepositing, difficult to determine. 
1 Edited by Dr. Thomas Wilson, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
