Having considered the climatic conditions that obtained at the climax
of the Glacial period, I have next to recapitulate what is known
as to the climatic changes of Pleistocene times. It is generally
admitted that the glacial conditions of which I have been speaking
were repeated twice, some say three times, during the Pleistocene
period; while others maintain that even a larger number of glacial
episodes may have occurred. Two glacial epochs, at all events, have
been recognised generally both in Europe and North America. These were
separated by an interglacial stage of more genial conditions, the
evidence for which is steadily increasing. No one now calls in question
the existence of interglacial deposits, but, as their occurrence is
rather a stumbling-block in the way of certain recently resuscitated
hypotheses, some attempt has been made to minimise their importance--to
explain them away, in fact. It has been suggested, for example--(and
the suggestion is by no means new)--that the deposits in question
only show that there were local oscillations during the advance and
retreat of the old ice-sheets and glaciers. This, however, is not the
view of those who have observed and described interglacial beds--who
know the nature of the organic remains which they have yielded, and
the conditions under which the beds must have been accumulated. I need
not refer to the interglacial deposits of our own country further
than to remark that they certainly cannot be explained away in that
summary fashion. The peat and freshwater beds that lie between the
lower and upper tills in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, for example,
are of themselves sufficient to prove a marked and decided change of
climate. No mere temporary retreat and re-advance of the ice-sheet
will account for their occurrence. The lower till is unquestionably
the bottom-moraine of an ice-sheet which, in that region, flowed
towards the east. When the geographical position of the deposits in
question is considered it becomes clear that an easterly flow of ice
in Mid-Lothian proves beyond gainsaying that during the accumulation
of the lower till all Scotland was drowned in ice. But when water once
more flowed over the land-surface--when a temperate flora, composed
of hazels and other plants, again appeared, it is obvious that the
ice-sheet had already vanished from central Scotland. This is not the
case of a mere temporary recession of the ice-front. It is impossible
to believe that a temperate or even cold-temperate flora could have
flourished in central Scotland at a period when thick glacier-ice
mantled any portion of our Lowlands. Again, in the upper till we read
the evidence of a recurrence of extreme glacial conditions--when
central Scotland was once more overwhelmed by confluent ice-streams
coming from the Highlands and the southern Uplands. Similar evidence
of recurrent glacial conditions, I need hardly remind you, has been
detected in other parts of the country.
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