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Glacial and post-Glacial times, with special reference to the 
deposits in which the remains of man have been found. 
Most men, who have been looking into these questions, 
have their own view of the sequence of events which have 
affected the physical geography of the country from Glacial 
times to the present day ; but they should try not to let a 
theory colour their view of everything they examine. I 
will give you an opportunity of detecting and eliminating 
the personal error from my communication this evening by 
giving you, at the outset, a short sketch of what are the con- 
clusions I have arrived at with regard to the later changes in 
or immediately affecting our country. 
Out of the great mass of material collected, I have to select 
only a small number of cases ; first of all choosing those which 
bear most clearly on the questions which interest this Society, 
and, secondly, out of them, selecting those in which the evidence 
is most clear. In such cases as that before us we must not 
expect to explain all the phenomena which Nature has left half- 
exposed to our gaze. We may be well content if we get clear 
evidence from a few, and in the others do not see anything 
contradictory to the obvious conclusions arrived at from them. 
First, then, I will premise that I think it far more likely 
that secularly recurring cosmical combinations may determine 
the time and manner of earth-movements, than that, by any 
direct effect upon the amount of heat and light received from 
the sun, they have produced those great vicissitudes of climate 
of which we find evidence. 
To be more particular, we find that, as now, in every latitude, 
glacial conditions always accompany great elevations, and that 
this confirms the conclusion we should arrive at from the 
distribution of the drift, &c., — that during the Glacial Period 
the mountains of Wales and Scotland were very much higher, 
and that when, at the close of the Glacial Period, there are 
proofs of submergence, there we have evidence also of an 
amelioration of climate. 
But we do not gather from the calculations of physicists 
that the difference of temperature due to astronomical com- 
binations could, under any circumstances, be so great as that 
which we see along the same parallel of latitude at the present 
time, and which must obviously be due to geographical causes. 
While geology does not point to any regular decrease of 
temperature, such as might be suggested by the knowledge of 
the secular cooling down of the globe, but rather shows 
recurring higher and lower temperature in the same area, 
we must bear in mind that the parts that were raised the 
