[DC] _Elephas meridionalis_ is usually regarded as a type-form of the Newer Pliocene, but long ago Dr. Fuchs pointed out that in Hungary this species is of quaternary age: _Verhandl. d. k. k. geolog. Reichsanstalt_, 1879, pp. 49, 270. It matters little whether we relegate to the top of the Pliocene or to the base of the Pleistocene the beds in which this species occurs. That it is met with upon an interglacial horizon is certain; and if we are to make the Pleistocene co-extensive with the glacial and interglacial series we shall be compelled to include in that system some portion of the Newer Pliocene. [DD] Julien: _Des Phènoménes glaciaires dans le Plateau central_, etc., 1869. Boule: _Revue d'Anthropologie_, 1879. [DE] _Prehistoric Europe_, p. 306. Professor Penck writes me that he and the Swiss glacialist, Dr. Du Pasquier, have recently examined these deposits, and are able to confirm my conclusion as to their interglacial position. There can be no doubt, then--indeed it is generally admitted--that the cold conditions that culminated in our Glacial period began to manifest themselves in Pliocene times. Moreover, as it can be shown that _Elephas meridionalis_ and its congeners lived in central Europe after an epoch of extensive glaciation, it is highly probable that the Forest-bed, which contains the relics of the same mammalian fauna, is equivalent in age to the early interglacial beds of France and the Alpine Lands. We seem, therefore, justified in concluding that the alternation of genial and cold climates that succeeded the disappearance of the greatest of our ice-sheets was preceded by analogous climatic changes in late Pliocene times. I shall now briefly summarise what seems to have been the glacial succession in Europe:-- {1. Weybourn Crag; ground-moraine of great Baltic { glacier underlying lower diluvium; the oldest { recognised ground-moraines of central Europe. { Glacial { These accumulations represent the earliest { glacial epoch of which any trace has been { discovered. It would appear to have been one of { considerable severity, but not so severe as the { cold period that followed. {2. Forest-bed of Cromer; Hötting breccia; lignites { of Leffe and Pianico; interglacial beds of Interglacial { central France. { { Earliest recognised interglacial epoch; climate { very genial.