Boulder Formations and Erratic Blocks, 327 



€0 groat a part of the boulder formation over the whole north- 

 ern region, and which seems to indicate a long continued action 

 over the same ground. We ought, besides, to have some inde- 

 pendent evidence of paroxysmal action in the same region ; 

 whereas there is the strongest proof of gradual upheavals : 

 take, for example, the whole continent of European Russia, 

 which exhibits scarcely any disruption, and which. Sir R. Mur- 

 chison is of opinion was elevated en masse. 



But we must go further back in our inquiry, before the wave 

 of translation was generated. Whence the detrital matter 

 which the wave transported \ Are we to suppose that the same 

 paroxysmal movement broke up and shattered to fragments 

 the bottom of the sea, and that it was these fragments which 

 the transient wave transported and rounded into boulders \ Or 

 is it more reasonable to suppose, that the materials of the 

 detritus must have been derived from pre-existent land, the 

 rocks of which were broken by glacial and atmospheric action, 

 as rocks now are, to be afterwards rolled, rounded, and polish- 

 ed by currents of water ; as they unquestionably must have 

 been, however the currents may have been produced 1 Then 

 as to the power of such currents, transporting hard bodies, to 

 produce the furrows and striae, I should be disposed to refer 

 io the phi/sicien, to him conversant with the laws of mechanical 

 philosophy, the questions whether rounded blocks and gravel, 

 moving in water, passing over rocks, would be capable of pro- 

 ducing on them these deep furrows and striae ; or whether it 

 is not more probable that they were worn by angular fragments 

 of rock held fast in ice, and pressed, as the current floated the 

 iceberg, against the opposing rock, with a vast force derived 

 from the weight of the mass ^ 



We learn from the " Magazine of Natural History " of last 

 September, that letters had been received the preceding month 

 from Mr Harry Goodsir, attached, as Naturalist, to the Arctic 

 Expedition under the command of Sir John Franklin, dated 

 from Disco, in Baffin's Bay, the 7th of July last ; and it is 

 stated that " Mr Goodsir is making minute observations upon 

 the ice of the bergs, and as he purposes continuing them 

 throughout the voyage, there can be little doubt of his arriving 

 at valuable conclusions." It is added, " We also find some 



