294 On the Glacial Theory, 



when that portion is deducted, the quantity of sand produced 

 even by that larjre river, and in so long- a time, must be quite 

 insignificant. The Niagara river ought also to aiford upon 

 the sides of the ravine, numerous scratches and furrows ; and, 

 if there were any, they could scarcely have escaped the 

 searching eye of Lyell ; but we venture to predict that not 

 the slightest trace of a scratch will there be found. 



Some there are, who, while they admit that the striae of 

 the rocks upon the continent are the effects of glacial action, 

 deny that the similar appearances in this country are due to 

 the same agent, because they cannot perceive the mountains 

 here from which the glaciers have emanated. This seems to 

 us the weakest of all arguments, for it presupposes that the 

 British Isles are in the same condition now, in regard to their 

 hills and valleys, that they were in the remoter ages — a suppo- 

 sition which is contradicted by a multitude of geological facts. 

 But the same objection would apply to the striae being 

 formed by a violent rush of water, which it is thought pro- 

 duced them. For, can there be a torrent of water without a 

 declivity ? and where are the mountains, from which such a 

 volume of water could issue as would produce such eifects ? 



We are not aware that any experiments have yet been 

 instituted to ascertain the quantity of sand and land brought 

 from glaciers by the water which issues from them ; but, 

 judging from its turbid appearance, the quantity must be very 

 considerable. There is this distinction between the sand in 

 glacier water and that in river water, that, in the former, 

 each particle of sand is a new accession to the soil of the 

 earth ; whereas in the latter, it is merely a removal of the soil 

 of one part of the earth to another. We have therefore un- 

 deniable evidence that the present glaciers are adding soil to 

 the earth ; and, consequently, we have an existing agent capa- 

 ble of producing by the abrasion of rocks, all the earthy 

 material of soil. In rivers and currents we have the agent by 

 which that soil is distributed on the face of the earth. Until 

 we saw what glaciers were performing, and the evidence 

 which exists of their former great extension, the agent by 

 which rocks were ground into soil, was unknown to us. But 



