Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/166

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138
EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN.
[CHAP. VI.

The Arctic Mammalia present.

The most important point to be remarked after the presence of man is that of two animals now only found in cold climates—the musk sheep (see Fig. 31) and the pouched marmot. The latter has been recently obtained by Mr. Flaxman Spurrell, with the bones in such a position as to prove that the animals had been surprised by floods while hibernating, and drowned. The first of these is now only to be found within the Arctic circle in America, while the second lives in the mountainous regions of Europe and the colder climates of Asia. They prove that the arctic mammalia were then in Britain.

Physical Relations of Mid Pleistocene Strata.

Fig. 28.—Lower Brick-earths, Uphall, Ilford.

The physical relations of these strata, containing the traces of man and remains of the mammalia, are very interesting from the possibility that they may belong to a time before the glacial climate had set in. At Ilford, for example. Fig. 28, the strata may be divided into three groups, deposited under different conditions.