Cuchullin Hills in Skt/e. 9^ 



and maintaining permanent glaciers in a suitable climate ; 

 and the slow steady action of abrasion, continued for im- 

 mense periods, seems the only one capable of producing, 

 under any circumstances, the appearances which have been 

 described; as a glacier is undoubtedly the single and sole 

 agent capable of continuing to exist within so small a com- 

 pass, and yet of transporting angular masses, of fifty tons or 

 more, and of lodging them, high and dry, on the ledges and 

 eminences where they now stand. 



^th September 1845.* 



On the Temperature of the Springs, Wells, and Bivers of In^ 

 dia and Egypt, and of the Sea and Table-lands within the 

 Tropics. By Captain Newbold, Madras Army, F.R.S. 



Professor Jameson, in his Chapter on the Hydrography of India, 

 justly remarks, " Although India, like other great tracts of country, 

 contains many springs, these have hitherto attracted but little atten- 

 tion. The temperature of but few of them is known ; their magni- 

 tudes and geognostical situations are scarcely ever mentioned ; and 

 their chemical composition, excepting in a very iew instances, has 

 been neglected. The most important feature in the natural history 

 of common or perennial springs, namely, their temperature, is rarely 

 noticed, although a knowledge of this fact is illustrative, not only of 

 the mean temperature of the climate, but also of the elevations of 

 the land above the level of the sea ; and our information in regard 

 to their chemical nature is equally meagre."t Since the publication 



* This paper was finished (as the date shews) before the publication 

 of Mr Maclaren's excellent observations on the Glacial Phenomena of 

 the Gareloch. The perfect insulation of the phenomena here described 

 constitutes, perhaps, their most important feature, since the radiation of 

 the furrows and boulders from the centre of the Cuchullins, localises 

 with certainty the power which produced them, and thus cuts off all 

 theories involving the action of great currents of water. I take this op- 

 portunity of adding, as a curious contribution to the history of this dis- 

 puted question in Geology, that I find from my notes taken in the Na- 

 tural History Class in 1827, that my respected teacher and friend, Pro- 

 fessor Jameson, even at that time referred to the erratic phenomenon 

 in Scotland, as perhaps requiring to be explained by the former presence 

 of glaciers. 



t Edinburgh Cabinet Library, British India, voL iii., p. 287. 



