Mr Murchison an the Glacial Theory, ISO 



important documents were put into my hands. The first of these is the 

 discourse of my predecessor, who has so modified his first views, that I 

 cannot but heartily congratulate the Society on the results at which he 

 has now arrived, I rejoice in the prudence of my friend, who has not per- 

 mitted the arguments of the able advocate to appear as the sober judg- 

 ment of so distinguished a President of the Geological Society. In fact, 

 it is nowplain that DrBuckland abandons, to a great extent, the theory of 

 Agassi'z, and admits fully the effects of water as well as of ice, to account 

 for many of the long-disputed phenomena. Whilst this admission involves 

 the concession for which we have been contending, viz. that the great 

 surfaces of our continent were immersed, and not above the waters, when 

 by far the greater number of the phenomena on the surface of rocks 

 was produced, I reject for those who entertain the same opinions as Wy- 

 self, the simple division into '* glaeialists" and " diluvialists," into which 

 Dr Buckland has divided the combatants on this question ; for to what- 

 ever extent the former title has been won by Agassiz and himself, we who 

 have contended for the submarine action of ice in former times, analogous 

 to that which we believe is going on at present, can never be merged 

 with those who, under the name of diluvialists, have contended for the 

 rush of mighty waves and waters over continents. Besides glaeialists 

 and diluvialists, my friend must therefore permit me to call for a third 

 class, the designation of which I leave to him, in which some of us desire 

 to be enrolled who have advocated that modified view to which the geno- 

 tal opinion is now tending. 



The other point to which I allude, and bearing at once on this view, is 

 a discovery which our Librarian has just made without quitting the apart- 

 ments which he so truly adorns. In the American Journal of Science for 

 the year 1826, Mr Lonsdale has detected a short, clear, and modest state- 

 ment, entitled " Remarks on Boulders, by Peter Dobson," which, though 

 little more than one page in length, contains the essence of the modified 

 glacial theory at which we have arrived after so much debate. First de- 

 Scribing in a few lines the manner in Which large boulders, weighing from 

 ten cwt. to fifteen tons, were dug out in clay and gravel, when making 

 the foundations for his own cotton factory at Yemon, and seeing that it 

 was not uncommon to find them worn, abraded, and scratched on the 

 lower side, " as if done (to use his own expression) by their having been 

 dragged over rocks and gravelly earth in one steady position," he adds this 

 most remarkable sentence : — " I think we cannot account for these appear- 

 ances, unless we call in the aid of ice as well as water, and that they havd 

 been worn by being suspended and carried in ice over rocks and earth under 

 water." To shew also that he had read much and thought deeply on 

 this subject, Mr Dobson quotes British authorities to prove> that as ice- 

 floes constantly carry huge masses of stone, and deposit them at great 

 distances from their original situation, so may they explain the transport- 

 ation of foreign boulders to our continents. 



