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The Chairman. — I wish the writer of the second communication had 
given proofs of some of his statements, 
Mr. W. Griffith. — Mr. Callard, in his most interesting paper, has led us a 
journey from Switzerland to Italy, — from the Alps to the Jura ; thence into 
Africa and across the Great Desert ; from thence to the plains of America 
and the Rocky Mountains ; and, further on again, to the mountain ranges of 
the great Asiatic continent. He has certainly established one great fact 
most completely, namely, that in all these regions there has been a Glacial 
epoch, during which glaciers of vast size existed and undoubtedly exer- 
cised a corresponding influence on vegetable and animal life. He has 
also brought forward another question, as to which the evidence is of 
a different description. I certainly agree to some extent with the conclusion 
arrived at by Mr. Callard and Mr. Pattison, the writer of the first letter 
read. But, at the same time, I also agree with Mr. Mello, that 
the evidence of the effects of the Glacial period is not altogether so 
satisfactory as we could wish. It is necessary for the theory founded 
on the Glacial epoch that that period should have been both universal 
and simultaneous, in order to produce a break in the continuity of 
life ; for if one portion of the earth was still warmed by the heat of 
the sun, while the other portion was under the action of the terrible 
glacial sea which Mr, Callard has described, it would follow that, in 
that portion which received the sun’s warmth, both the flora and fauna, 
the vegetable and animal life, might continue to exist. I could not 
help thinking, as Mr. Callard led us on the voyage he was taking round 
the globe, of a journey I once made myself, from the plains of Northern 
Italy to the Alps he has so eloquently described. While on the plains of 
Northern Italy, I was among an almost tropical vegetation, the Indian corn 
was growing to a height of several feet ; in fact, it completely overtopped 
the tallest man, while the luxuriance of all the other vegetation was re- 
markable. Only a few miles further north, in the valley of Aosta, this 
vegetation had all disappeared, and a few miles beyond that, when 
we reached the pass surmounted by the great St. Bernard Hospice, sum- 
mer and spring had gone, and we were nearing the confines of winter, and 
approaching the everlasting glaciers of Mont Blanc ; but even at that great 
height the Alpine flora still existed, though, of course, as we mounted higher 
among the perpetual snow towards the very summit, the flora disappeared, 
in a manner corresponding with that of the glacial flora already described. 
Thus, then, we have at the present period in Europe huge glaciers among 
the higher mountain ranges, and within less than a hundred miles we get 
into a sub-tropical region where the Indian corn waves in the richest 
luxuriance on the plains. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion that it 
is not established that the glacial periods were simultaneous and universal 
and, if either of these two conditions be wanting, the break of continuity 
contended for by the author of this paper is not established, because there 
may have been, as in the case I have referred to, spots where the deleterious 
influence produced by glacial action did not exist. At the same time I 
