Since its foundation as a Science, at the beginning of this century, by the illustrious Cuvier, Palæontology has progressed with an astonishing rapidity; and though theoretically belonging to the twin sciences of Zoology and Botany, its domain is now so vast, and the number of facts which it has accumulated is so great, that it has every claim to rank as a distinct department of knowledge, which cannot be fully mastered except by those who make it the subject of special study. That the number of these is daily increasing is shown conclusively by the increased number of systematic works on Palæontology which have appeared of late years, and not less by the character of these. Two of these treatises, both as yet but partially published, may be singled out for mention in this connexion—namely, the “Handbuch der Palæontologie” by Professors Zittel and Schimper, and the new “Lethæa Geognostica” by an association of German palæontologists. The former of these, if carried out with the fulness and accuracy which distinguish its first portion, will be one of the most valuable and important treatises on systematic palæontology which we possess in any language, and will be a fitting companion to the classical treatises of Pictet and D'Orbigny, though it will not supersede either of these honoured works. Of the second of these only the first part, embracing the Atlas of Plates of Palæozoic fossils, has as yet been issued; but if the text be equal to the plates, and if the various sections of the work are undertaken by men as eminent as Ferdinand Roemer, the new “Lethæa Geognostica” will undoubtedly form an indispensable item in the library of every working palæontologist.

I have, in the foregoing, endeavoured to set out the general conditions under which that one principal Glacial deposit of England which I term “Upper Glacial” was accumulated, according to the views to which I have been led by several years' active examination of the area occupied by it, and a still longer study of the phenomena observed. They differ materially in many respects from the views urged by Mr. Jas. Geikie in his “Great Ice Age,” and continued observation will help to determine which can best be reconciled with the facts; but before leaving the subject of this formation, I must observe that the diagram and description by Mr. Skertchly of the manner in which Lincolnshire was glaciated, as imported by Mr. Geikie into his book, conveys what I regard as an erroneous view.

About 5–30 p.m. on Thursday, 13th November, I said good-bye to Lake Baikal, and branched off upon a road to the right leading to Cabansk. Along this road, which was a very bad one, there was an apparently untouched forest of birch and pine, with here and there a clump of aspen. For some distance upon my left extended a wide lake, which joined the Baikal. After much reckless driving across wide trackless plains, through gaps in ridges, snow drifts and clumps of trees, with a wild and drunken coachman, at half-past eight I found myself at the post station of Cabansk. After a windy and bitterly cold night, I was next morning at the station of Palavinsaya, the country round which is hilly and pretty. The next station was situated in a plain between sloping hills and isolated peaks. These hills being without wood, the country had an open appearance. As I went on, the snow, which I had been told in Irkutsk would be continuous as far as Kiachta, grew less and less, and at the station where I next changed horses, I had to abandon the sledge I had purchased and hire a carriage. Although the roads were now tolerably free from snow, the surrounding hills were still white with it. The next morning I passed the station of Povorotnaya. The soil now became sandy, and the only trees were pines. The way in which these were dotted about in clumps gave a park-like aspect to the district.

At Broom, in the parish of Hawkchurch, near Axminster, close to the River Axe, in the angle formed by the junction of a tributary brook with it, is a low hill, the summit of which is about 50 feet above the level of the rails of the London and South-Western Railway, which runs at its base. This hill consists of a mass of chert gravel intermingled with ferruginous clay of a yellow colour, and interstratified with seams of sandy clay, without shells or other animal-remains, as far as is at present known. There are a few much-rolled pebbles of quartz; of a hard dark-grey siliceous rock; and of chalk flints, mingled with the chert fragments, many of which are angular or subangular. It has been cut into for ballast for the railway, and about half has been removed in the last fifteen years, exposing a section of from 40 to 50 feet in depth. The bottom of the pit is on a level with the rails, which are a few feet above the river, and about 150 feet above the level of the sea, about six miles distant. The chert gravel was probably derived from the Greensand which caps the hills inclosing the valley.