38 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
stoniness of the surface and margin of the northern drift of the British 
Islands can, of course, only with propriety, be given by those who have 
_ studied the phenomena on the spot, but we may offer the conjecture that 
the clay has been most thoroughly washed out of these portions. 
THE FOREST BED. 
The above name was given in our second volume to a sheet of soil 
‘with fallen, and sometimes standing tree trunks, beds of peat, etc., 
which, in Southern Ohio, rests upon the Hrie or Bowlder clay; and it was 
shown to be the product of a growth of vegetation which, after the re- 
treat of the glacier, covered much of the nearly continuous, but, un- 
even sheet of morainic material left behind it. This was for ages a land 
surface which sustained a forest of arborescent and herbaceous plants, 
the home of the mammoth, mastodon, giant beaver, and doubtless, many 
other animals. Numerous instances of the occurrence of vegetable mat- 
ter in the Drift of other portions of the Mississippi Valley were cited in 
connection with the description of the Ohio Forest bed; but 1t was not 
asserted, nor can it now be, that these were continuous or synchronous 
with it. The facts reported proved conclusively that the southern half 
of the State was covered with an inter-glacial forest, the first indication 
found on this continent of an interval of mild climate in the ice period. 
The remarkable facts reported by Mr. George Jennings Hinde, of 
Toronto, in his very interesting paper, ‘“ On the Inter-Glacial Strata of 
Scarboro Heights,” * are not only confirmatory of the views advanced in 
our first volume, but seem to indicate a second inter-glacial mild period ; 
inasmuch as he finds three beds of Till or Bowlder clay, with stratified 
and fossiliferous sands and clays between them. 
Professors Croll and Geikie, in their ‘Climate and Time,” and ‘ Great 
Ice Age,” present what seem to be conclusive proofs of one or more 
inter-glacial, warm, or less cold intervals in Hurope during the ic 
period, and they are generally accepted as such by geologists. These 
changes may have been in part local, but the evidence that the ic 
period of Europe was synchronous with that in North America, is very 
strong, and it is now generally believed that the causes which produced 
the excessive cold, affected the whole northern hemisphere. Our Forest 
bed is confirmatory of this theory—as any great changes of temperature 
recorded in the Huropean superficial deposits should also be indicated 
here, and it constitutes another marked correspondence between the au- 
tographic records of the Ice Age in the old and new worlds. Further 
investigation will be required, both here and abroad, before it can be de 
termined whether the parallelism is exact. The subject is one of great 
* Canadian Journal, April, 1877. 
