go The Loess of the Rhine and the Danube. [January, 
Siberia in 1873 that the high lands to the north of the Altai 
had not borne glaciers even in the Glacial period, and they 
would thus afford a refuge from the great flood. But in 
western Europe most of the land that was not submerged 
was covered with ice, and there were few places of safety to 
flee to. What few there were, were in the east of Europe, 
and therefore it is, I think, that after the Glacial period 
passed away the animals that survived mostly spread from 
the south-east across Europe again, and only a few had 
reached England, and still fewer Ireland, before the waters 
of the ocean resumed their old channels, and cut off the 
communication with the Continent. 
After the Glacial period, neolithic man, who had probably 
lived to the south and south-east for ages before that time, 
found central and northern Europe open to him. Not only 
the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros had been destroyed, 
but, what was of much greater importance to him, the great 
Carnivora — the cave bear, the lion, and the tiger. The 
whole of northern Europe had also been covered by the 
fertile mud deposited from the Great Lake, and thus in 
every way the conditions of existence had been made more 
suitable for him. 
The Glacial period is thus invested with a double interest ; 
it is the first step backward in geology, the first forward in 
archaeology, and in neither sciences can we make our footing 
secure until we clear away the doubts that beset us here. I 
claim for my theory that it shirks none of the difficulties 
and embraces all the facfts. I have only dealt with a few of 
the problems in this and other papers, but I hope to find 
time to show in future communications that the theory 
affords a key to all. I can only trust that through time the 
faith of geologists in great upheavals and depressions of the 
earth’s surface within a comparatively short period, in the 
possibility of the ocean having covered vast continental 
areas and retired without leaving any marine remains behind 
it, and in a succession of glacial periods having alternated 
with inter-glacial warm ones, will be shaken, and that they 
may look more favourably upon a theory that explains all 
the phenomena by one great advance southwards of the ice 
of a single glacial period. 
