on the Erratic Phenomena of Scandinavia. Ill 



kilometres to the north, ho again found others nearly paral- 

 lel to the first ; and without having visited the intermediate 

 region, or taking into account the striae which, in these 

 countries, form considerable angles with those he had chosen, 

 lie concluded that one and the same grooving system (such 

 is the kind of expression he employs), extended from 63d to 

 59th degree of latitude, and proceeded from the north to the 

 south of Norway. The author gives a similar account of the 

 strife which present a similar orientation at Gefle, on the 

 shores of the Gulf of Bothnia, and in the neighbourhood of 

 Gothenburg, a town situate on the North Sea. This mode 

 of proceeding appears to me altogether arbitrary ; for we 

 might quite as easily form other groups completely different 

 from the first, and which rested on as slender grounds. 

 Why, for example, should we not consider as forming part of 

 the same system, the striae running from NNW. to SSE., in 

 the vicinity of Areskutan, in Norway, and those which cover 

 Finland, inclining in the same direction \ In order to justify 

 the establishment of these different groups, it would be ne- 

 cessary to prove, first, that the stria) running in the same 

 direction, are the effect of a uniform and uninterruped agent, 

 such as a current or other mass capable of leaving marks of 

 its passage ; now, this M. Durocher has not done. Neither 

 does he allow himself to be arrested by the directions of 

 striae which intersect these different groups at angles more 

 or less open. Thus, the prolongation of the great system 

 running from NNW. to SSE., from lake Oestersund to lake 

 Maelar, near Stockholm, that is to say, from 63d to 59th de- 

 gree of latitude, is at a right angle with the direction of the 

 striue of the island of Gottland. The strioe running from the 

 N. to S., in the south of Sweden, are intersected, under an 

 angle of 45°, by those in the neighbourhood of Cimbrishamn. 

 M. Durocher, besides, leaves out of his ten systems of ero- 

 sions, all the striae whose direction does not conveniently 

 agree with them ; those, for example, which radiate round 

 the Suletimten group of mountains, in the lower part of the 

 Sognefiord ; those in the neighbourhood of Sneehsetten, Ekes- 

 joe, Wexioe, Carlskrona, Cimbrishamn, the island of Gott- 

 land, &c., and notwithstanding all these liberties, the author 



