5 
1915-16.] Opening Address by the President. 
the destructive criticism of Professor Simon Newcomb and E. P. Culverwell 
has considerably shaken the confidence of geologists in its efficacy. 
Having furnished a detailed account of the glacial and post-glacial 
deposits in Scotland, James Geikie proceeded to describe the relics of post- 
Tertiary time in England and Ireland, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and North 
America, where he found similar evidence of interglacial mild conditions 
amongst the oldest glacial deposits. He laid special emphasis on the lignite 
at Diirnten and Wetzikon in the Canton of Zurich, which rests on ground 
moraine and is overlain by sand and gravel with Alpine erratics. From 
the plants found in the lignite, Professor Heer concluded that the climate 
during its formation was similar to what it is now. This interglacial bed 
also yielded the bones of the Asiatic elephant, a species of rhinoceros, the 
urus or great ox, the stag, and the cave bear. From a consideration of the 
whole evidence that had been accumulated up to 1874 in those countries 
where glacial phenomena had been studied, James Geikie inferred that 
there is clear proof of a mild interglacial period in the later stage of the 
Glacial Epoch. 
James Geikie had now reached a critical stage in his investigations as 
presented in The Great Ice Age, for he had to face the question of the 
antiquity of man, which was intimately associated with the age of the 
Palaeolithic gravels and cave deposits in the south of England. He was 
convinced that it was necessary to establish the sequence of events in the 
Glacial Epoch before the age of the Palaeolithic gravels could be defined. 
He called attention to the great contrast between the fauna of the post- 
glacial and recent beds in Scotland, the north of England, Wales, and 
Ireland on the one hand, and that of the Palaeolithic gravels and cave 
deposits on the other. Sir Charles Lyell and others held the opinion that 
all the Palaeolithic gravels were post-glacial. Godwin- Austin suggested 
that they might be the equivalents of glacial deposits elsewhere. Boyd 
Dawkins maintained, as we have seen, that man and the extinct mammals 
lived in the south of England, when the greater part of Britain was covered 
with ice and snow, when the summers were warm and the winters severe. 
The peculiar assemblage of northern and southern forms pointed to 
seasonal migrations. James Geikie advocated the view, which was sup- 
ported by Sir John Lubbock and Dr Croll, that the phenomena pointed to 
changes of climate. 
In dealing with this question he indicated the three groups of mammals 
found in the cave deposits and river gravels associated with implements of 
the old stone men. The southern group comprised the lion, the tiger, the 
spotted hyaena, two extinct species of elephant, the hippopotamus, and 
