The Glacial epoch in Europe ran a course remarkably parallel with its history in North America. After the first Glacial and Interglacial stages (perhaps representing the sub-Aftonian and Aftonian), came the time of the greatest expansion of the ice, the Saxonian stage of Geikie, which is believed to correspond to the Kansan of America. The great centre of dispersion was the Scandinavian peninsula, where the ice was probably 6000 to 7000 feet thick, and whence it flowed outward, filling the Baltic and North seas, and covering Finland, northwestern Russia, the lowlands of Germany, and extending to England. The Highlands of Scotland were a secondary centre, its ice-sheets flowing into the North Sea and uniting with those from Scandinavia, and westward to the ocean. The Irish Channel was also filled up. From the southwest of Ireland to the North Cape of Norway, a distance of 2000 miles, was probably a continuous wall of ice fronting the sea, like that which now surrounds the Antarctic continent. At the same time the Alps were the seat of enormous glaciers, only the highest peaks rising above the sheets of ice, and these great glaciers extended far out from the foot of the mountains, covering all the lowlands of Switzerland and extending from Austria and Bavaria, on the east, to the Rhone valley near Lyons, on the west.

The high plateau of Asia, from the Himalaya to Bering's Sea, shows evidences of glaciation, and great valley glaciers were formed on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, extending in some places to within 2000 feet of the sea-level.

A second great Glacial stage (the fourth Glacial or Mecklen-burgian of Geikie) is generally recognized in Europe and correlated with the Wisconsin stage of America. This ice-sheet was much less extensive than the former one, being confined principally to Finland, Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, which it filled, Denmark, and a little of north Germany. The prevailing motion of this sheet was from east to west. The Alpine glaciers were also extended far beyond their present limits, but not so widely as before.

Following the Mecklenburgian stage came alternating periods of milder and colder climates, the fourth and fifth Interglacial, and fifth and sixth Glacial stages of Geikie, the Glacial stages marked, not by the formation of great continental ice-sheets, but by the extension or recrudescence of local snow-fields and valley glaciers. Oscillations of level also occurred along the coasts, allowing limited transgressions of the sea.

The Pleistocene of the other continents has been considered in the general introductory statements.