The Quaternary period and how it became even more complicated. Part I: On the origin of Quaternary science. Starting in 18th century, the article describes the oldest roots of our knowledge of the youngest period of geological time-scale. History of this dynamic branch of science is closely bound to developments in geology, archaeology, biogeography and evolutionary biology. Special emphasis is put on the conceptual influence of Georges Cuvier and Charles Lyell. Breakthrough came with the work of Louis Agassiz who firs succeeded with carrying generally the glacial paradigm. Development in the second half of 19th century brought about general acceptance of this concept and finally led to the emergence of quadriglacialism in the work of A. Penck and E. Brückner (1901-1909). Around the time of the World War II, new crevices appeared in Quaternary science. This was largely the work of Czech geologists that contributed to the final erosion of the concept of four glacial stages and pointed towards modern theories of multiple Quaternary climatic cycles - polyglacialism. (To be continued.)
The Quaternary period and how it became even more complicated. Part II: Explosion of the knowledge in 20th century. Along with revolutionary discoveries in the field of Quaternary geology, theorerical inquiries expanded our insights into the causes of past glaciations. Taking some older concepts, J. Croll developed the theory of harmonically changing orbital parameters of the planet Earth that could led to the successive alterations between warm and cold periods. Under the framework of dominant monoglacialistic concept of that time, such theory could not find general acceptace. Some 50 years kater, much more precise calculations of Milutin Milanković had by far the same fate. Thios was only after World War II when these theoretical models found their background in the factual data collected by geologists studying river terraces, loess sequences and deep ocean cores. Using muliple correlations between different sorts of sedimentary records, complemented by application of new techniques of their absolute dating, modern paradigm of multiple glaciations finally established in 60th and 70th of the last century. Together with rising appreciation of global-scale processes such development led to the emergence of the new global consciousness of our time.
František F. Čecháč, August Seydler. (Úvod redakce společný k oběma článkům je uveden na straně 323.) and [Čas. pěst. math. fys. 9, 180 (1880)] a [Čas. pěst. math. fys. 9, 191 (1880)]