280 
ME. PEESTWICH ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE DEPOSITS 
The mammalian remains at present recorded from the High-level Flint-implement- 
bearing Gravels are : — 
Hoxne. 
Bedford. 
Biddenham. 
Amiens. 
St. Acheul. 
Elephas primigenius 
* (sp.?) 
* 
* 
antiquus 
* 
* 
Rhinoceros tichorhinus 
* 
Equus (the common fossil species) . . 
* 
* 
Bos ( primigenius ?) 
* 
* 
* 
Cervus 
* 
* 
* 
tarandus 
* ? 
This list is very small, and would not of itself suffice to prove the character of the 
climate. We know only that the Elejphas 'primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus are 
considered, from their association and their structure, to have inhabited countries pos- 
sessing cold climates ; and that their remains are found chiefly in the subarctic and north 
temperate zone, and are not known south of the temperate zone. We know also that the 
Horse and the Ox brave the winters of Siberia and Northern America. The Reindeer 
is essentially a northern animal. 
Of the flora of this period we have very limited means of judging. Generally the 
high-level gravels contain no vegetable remains, with the rare exceptions of mere 
fragments of decayed wood. Occasionally, where lodgements have been effected out of 
the direct course of the main stream, plant-remains are more abundant, and the wood 
larger and more perfect — so much so as to lead to a hope that ultimately we may find 
a favoured spot containing the requisite evidence respecting the vegetation of the period. 
In the mean time there have been found at Hoxne large pieces of the stem and branches 
of the Oak, Yew, and Fir, and traces also of leaves and seeds*. These trees, common 
in our latitudes, have at the same time a considerable northern range : and, as with the 
Testacea, there is thus far an absence of southern forms. If we may consider the Oak as 
defining an extreme of climate, we shall find ourselves restricted in a northern direction 
to some moderate degree of cold, for the Oak in Europe does not extend beyond 58° to 
63° lat., with a winter temperature of from 15° to 20°. In America it reaches, and that 
only in a stunted form, no further north than the basin of the Saskatchewan, within a 
short distance of Cumberland House, in 54° lat., where, however, the winter tempera- 
ture is — 3 0, 7 f . It may be a question whether in those latitudes where the sun would 
have more power than in the higher latitudes first named, and where consequently the 
ground in the summer would thaw to a greater depth, the Oak may not have thriven 
under a winter temperature more nearly like that of the American region. 
* I since found, in the autumn of 1863, a few impressions of a leaf, apparently of a Bilberry, in bed d, at 
Hoxne. "With these there were also numerous valves of Cyprides and some calcareous grains of Avion ater . — 
Feb. 1864. 
t Arctic Searching Expedition, by Sir John Eichardson, London, 1851 ; The Yegetation of Europe, by 
A. Henerey, London, 1852 ; Geographie Botanique, par A. De Candolle, Paris, 1855. 
