and in the cabinet of natural history at Carlsruhe there is a specimen four feet in length. These were the greatest salamanders which have dwelt upon our earth. The species still living in Japan (Andrias Japonicus) is smaller, but has a skeleton almost identical with that of Eningen. It sometimes attains to three feet in length, and inhabits the streams and lakes of Southern Japan. Remnants of a gigantic frog have been discovered at Eningen; a creature that probably hid itself in the mud during the day, and came forth in the evening to leap about the adjoining land in search of food. Nor were Saurians, serpents, and tortoises wanting around the lake we are now re-animating. One of the tortoises (Chelydra Murchisoni) was of signal size, the length of the whole reptile from the extremity of its head to that of its tail having been more than a yard. Its carapace was a perfect oval, and its tail was long. But still more interesting than these are the remains of a bird found at Eningen. The fossil remnants of birds are so rare that this one possesses a particular attraction. It was probably of an aquatic species (Anas), but cannot be well determined. A large feather has come from the same place. We have chosen the locality of Eningen for our principal illustration of the life of this epoch, because it is the richest of all the Miocene deposits, as a whole, and, as before said, shows its fossils in the finest conservation. It is an adequate specimen of the exuberant vitality of this period, and of the riches which it displayed in an extraordinary measure in Switzerland. The inferences respecting climate deducible from the character of this varied fauna and flora are beyond our limits, but are fully and cautiously stated by Dr. Heer in a separate chapter. We now approach the Glacial Epoch, and will first notice a formation in what has been called the Inter-glacial Period. In England there is a remarkable local formation on the coast of Norfolk, where from Cromer onwards for nearly forty miles the beatings of the sea-waves have uncovered the rough remnants of an ancient forest. There roots and branches of old trees spread in all directions; and amongst them are to be found many specimens of fir and pine cones-like those of the spruce or Scotch fir, together with seeds and leaves of marsh plants. With these are associated the teeth of at least two species of elephants (Elephas antiquus and meridionalis), and parts of the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, ox, horse, stag, pig, and beaver. Paleontologists well know this rich deposit;. local collectors have gathered curious collections from it; and the Londoners who will take the trouble to visit the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, will find that the late Mr. King's

collection of Elephantine and other fossils from this locality is there exhibited. If, after having inspected these, we visit Switzerland, Dr. Heer will tell us that he can show very similar fossils and a similar deposit in his country, probably of about the same geological age; and he will accompany us to the before-mentioned canton of Glarus, and tarry with us near the heights of the Speer (from which a very fine panorama is visible on a fine day), the Schänisorberg and the Mürchenstock. Hereabouts we discover deposits of a particular character closely resembling those of Cromer on the coast of Norfolk.

In the Commune of Dürnten, and at the distance of a few minutes from the village of that name, there are certain layers of carbonaceous matter or lignite, and these are eagerly worked for fuel in a country so scantily provided with coal as Switzerland. Here, then, is a local industry of some importance; but at present we heed it not, for we only desire to learn what Dürnten and the whole neighbourhood was in primeval ages. The layers of lignite indicate an ancient marshy border of a lake, which at times made inroads into turf bogs. Veins of coaly matter and clay therefore alternate in this spot, and by successive layers of clay, sand, lignite, and erratic débris, we trace the changes of the times. Plainly observable is the striking analogy with our Cromer forest-bed deposit; for here are trunks of pine trees both in a perpendicular and a horizontal position, the texture of their wood being identical with that of the present period. Here also we find numerous pine-cones, small and great, ripe and unripe, moist and dry. If we choose to follow our author in this inquiry, we shall find that as a professed botanist he makes this indisputably clear. Moreover, that great expositor of Mosses, Professor Schimper, has determined certain cryptogams, which have left their marks in that part of the foliaceous deposit which was once a peaty marsh.

But the elephants' teeth are the chief connecting link between Dürnten and Cromer. Nothing, indeed, approaching to Mr. King's collection of elephantine teeth from Norfolk can be seen at Dürnten, but at the latter place two fine molars of an elephant were secured, and these are assigned to Elephas antiquus and Elephas primigenius. Dürnten, however, has furnished the almost complete skeleton of a rhinoceros, which accidentally was almost completely destroyed. Besides and below the mammalian remains, Dr. Heer met with at Dürnten fossil insects, which we believe have not been found at Cromer in Norfolk. At least a dozen or two of wing-cases

came into his possession, and on these he discourses entomologically.

Eningen dates from the last period of the Mollasse, and has not even one species common with Dürnten, so that there is an enormous hiatus between the two formations. Thus, too, old Lausanne and old Dürnten are as unlike as possible. In the one was a sub-tropical vegetation with trees which are entire strangers to existing Switzerland; in the other a reproduction of its actual vegetation. The Mollasse, therefore, was completely changed before the time we now regard, and we are able to follow the change along the whole chain of the Alps.

What in one of the plates of the volume before us has been done for Dürnten-namely, a pictorial restoration of the primeval life in that spot, displaying the trees, bushy vegetables, and the various mammalia roaming among them-might likewise be effected for our forest-beds at Cromer, and probably the restored landscapes would be very similar; it is clear that the warm period indicated by the fossils at both places was an intercalation between two periods of extreme cold; hence the title 'Inter-glacial.' The antecedence of a cold climate at Cromer is proved by the arctic character of a large proportion of the shells of living species included in the marine strata of Chillesford near Ipswich; and the subsequence of a cold period at Cromer is shown by the fact that it underlies the great mass of glacial drift, containing boulders and angular blocks transported from afar. Thus a period so Thus a period so long as to afford time for the accumulation of dense beds of lignite, as at Utznach in St. Gall and Dürnten, and the flourishing of numerous mammalia, came with its life-sustaining climate, like an unexpected summer between two freezing periods, also of long duration, and the vicinity of Zurich and of Norwich about the same time enjoyed the exceptional blessing of sunshine and heat, not unlike the present climate in Switzerland. It was indeed a

favourable time for urochs, the primeval ox, elephants, rhinoceroses, tall stags, and cavernous bears. Nor were insects absent amidst these great mammalia, and these little creatures doubtless lived amongst the aquatic and marshy plants of the neighbourhood. At death they fell in the waters, and the parts of their small bodies were dislocated; but there they are disentombed to-day, with the dense lignites and huge relics of the mammalia of the place and the period.

With the Pliocene relics we have now finished, and we come upwards to times which are named Recent, however remote from all historical chronology. Certainly one of the most

VOL. CXXXIX. NO. CCLXXXIII.

N

astonishing chapters in Dr. Heer's book is that which he has devoted to the Swiss Glacial Epoch. During this period there was a great lowering of temperature, when the Swiss glaciers descended from the Alpine zone and invaded the plains. Erratic blocks came down with them, and these are strewed over many adjacent districts. Animals capable of enduring extreme cold then and there flourished, while forests were destroyed and buried; but there was a flora as appropriate to that period as the fauna. Both can be in imagination accurately restored from our paleontological knowledge. The most striking restoration has been made by Dr. Heer to serve as the frontispiece to the present volume. Zurich is seen in its primeval desolation. The outline of the mountains round and beyond it is much the same as we now behold, but in place of the present busy town and steamboattravelled lake, with populous villages and noisy manufactories on the banks, we discern nothing but a vast and dreary icefield not unlike those represented in the books of Polar expeditions. Little of the waters of the lake is visible, but blocks and seracs of ice are piled up and spread out for miles. The time chosen is the end of the second glacial period. The great glacier of the district is in retreat. The chain of hills which it covers are already free and are covered with forests of coniferous trees. Upon the ice-broken surface of the lake run two long lateral moraines; nearer to our stand-point is a terminal moraine, the enormous blocks of which have been brought down by the glacier. Dwarf pines and alders are struggling upwards out of unfriendly soils. A little family of marmots, whose shrill whistle is so welcome and so familiar to glacial excursionists of our day, is diverting itself in corners, while on the right hand appear some huge mammoths, and not far from them a herd of reindeer is making its cautious way along a strip of land and proceeding to drink. Far and high in the distance tower the Glärnisch and the Windgelle mountains, from which descends the glacier which has desolated and is now slowly retreating to the plains. Such was the aspect of the lake of Zurich towards the decline of the second glacial period.

So, then, from all the relics left to us it is manifest that the warm Tertiary period was succeeded by a climate far colder than that which now prevails in the same countries. The Pliocene climate more nearly approached to ours. The invasive descent of the great glaciers was wholly a question of temperature in the period which followed. If the mean temperature became lower by four or five degrees, irresistibly downward slid the glaciers into the plains; let but the temperature be equally

raised, and the glaciers were on the retreat. Strange and perplexing as the phenomenon of the old glaciers are at first sight, the key to them all is a few degrees higher or lower of temperature. We can with this key go through the whole local history of the marches and countermarches of these immense. masses of ice, until we reach the Post-glacial period, and come nearer to the ages of Man.

During the fullest development of the Glacial period, and while thousands of feet of ice covered the valleys, organic life was reduced to its narrowest limits. In the midst of the dead seas of ice, however, there were islands, and some of the loftiest Alpine regions were lifted out of these dead seas, as is proved by the quantities of erratic blocks now forming portions of moraines. Upon these islands what life remained then survived, in the same manner as in our day Dr. Heer has collected 106 species of Phanerogamous plants in the higher regions of the Grisons, at elevations of from 8,500 to 11,000 feet. So also at Spitzbergen 111 species of Phanerogams, and in Greenland more than 320 species, are discovered even where glaciers cover the country and descend to the sea. Whenever the Swiss glaciers diminished and the subjacent soil was laid bare, vegetation again invaded the ground, and the foliaceous lignites show a flora resembling that of our actual middle Europe and the temperate regions of Asia, with the addition of a few mountain trees. Always the vegetation followed the glacial changes, and made good its place wherever it could. Living Alpine plants follow this precedent, and some surround the lofty fields of névé and establish themselves upon the moraines and glacier islands, and in the midst of desolation display their charming colours to our eyes.

We must pass over the scanty fauna of the Glacial epoch, as well as more detailed particulars about its flora. It would have been highly instructive to have dwelt awhile upon the latest Quaternary deposits, because with them we come comparatively near to Man. Nothing, however, shows when he first appeared, for the remnants of the lake-dwellings are long posterior to the periods of which we have last been writing. Man may, and perhaps must, have been on the earth before these, but his pre-historic chronology is still obscure and undetermined. Whenever he did appear, our present province and that of Dr. Heer ceases; for we descant only upon the Primeval Life of Switzerland.

Tourists of hasty habits know nothing of the attractions associated with the subterranean science of Switzerland, and nothing of the paleontological studies connected with it; yet