Erratics not transported by Currents. 10!$ 



into the Atlantic, while the current of the Pacific, moving- 

 towards Asia, and carrying floods of water in that direction, 

 is maintained chiefly by antarctic currents, and those which 

 follow the western shore of America from Behring's Straits. 

 Wherever they are limited by continents, we see that the 

 waters of these currents, even when they extend over hun- 

 dreds of degrees of latitude, as the Gulf Stream does in its 

 whole course, are deflected where they cannot follow a 

 straight course. 



Now, without appealing with more detail to the mechani- 

 cal conditions involved in this inquiry, I ask every unpreju- 

 diced mind acquainted with the distribution of the northern 

 boulders, whether there was any geographical limitation to 

 the supposed northern current to cause it to leave the northern 

 erratics of Europe in such regular order, with a constant 

 bearing from north to south, and to form, on its southern 

 termination, a wide, regular zone from Asia to the western 

 shores of Europe, north of the fiftieth degree of latitude, be- 

 fore it had reached the great barrier of the Alps % I ask, 

 whether there was such a barrier in the unlimited plains 

 which stretch from the Arctic seas uninterrupted over the 

 whole northern continent of America as far down as the Gulf 

 of Mexico 1 



I ask, again, why the erratics are circumscribed within the 

 northern limits of the temperate zone, if their transportation 

 is owing to the action of water currents % Does not, on the 

 contrary, this most surprising limit within the arctic and 

 northern temperate zones, and, in the same manner, within the 

 antarctic and southern temperate zones, distinctly shew that 

 the cause of transportation is connected with the temperature 

 or climate of the countries over which the phenomena were 

 produced \ K it were otherwise, why are there no systems 

 of erratics with an east and west bearing, or in the main di- 

 rection of the most extensive currents flowing at present over 

 the surface of our globe ? 



It is a matter of fact, of undeniable fact, for which the 

 theory has to account, that, in the two hemispheres, the erra- 

 tics have direct reference to the polar regions, and are cir- 

 cumscribed within the arctics and the colder part of the tern- 



