240 On the Erratic Phenomena of Scandinavia. 



glaciers from those produced by currents of water. I demon- 

 strated the former existence of vast glaciers in countries where 

 glaciers no longer exist, as, for example, in Scotland, England, 

 and Ireland ; and I cannot doubt but that, from the nature 

 of the facts which have been pointed out in Norway and in 

 Sweden, what has been termed the erratic phenomenon of 

 the north, had its principal cause in the existence of immense 

 glaciers, which, as they disappeared, gave rise to currents, to 

 whose agency the whole phenomenon has by some been at- 

 tributed, but which could, in fact, have only produced a part 

 of these effects, — a part which future researches will, doubt- 

 less, enable us everywhere to distinguish. In conclusion, I 

 may remark, that I am now in possession of an important 

 concession made to the theory of glaciers by its most con- 

 stant antagonist, since, according to M. Durocher himself, 

 glaciers abrade, polish, and scratch, by their under-surfaces, 

 in consequence of the pressure which they exercise on their 

 bed and of their progressive movement." 



III. On some facts dependent on the Erratic Phenomena of Scan- 

 dinavia. By M. P. ScHiMPER. 



On reading the notice of M. Durocher on some facts de- 

 pendent on the erratic phenomena of Scandinavia (says M. 

 Schimper, in a letter to M. Elie de Beaumont), I was surprised 

 to remark that it was only the stride existing on the shores 

 of the sea, and on the neighbouring small islands, which are 

 there explained. Any one who has seen the Karren on the 

 Skaren of Gottenburg, in the Fjords of Christiania and of 

 Trondhjem, or in the environs of Stockholm, &c., must, with- 

 out difficulty, have recognised them to be striae produced by 

 the action of water, for they are irregular, converging, ana- 

 stomosing, and undulating ; in a word, altogether different 

 from those of existing glaciers, and from those which are to 

 be observed in the interior of Scandinavia, in the high valleys 

 and along mountains, at an altitude where the sea did not 

 exist before the last rising of the peninsula; as, for example, 

 on the high road leading from Christiania to Ringerige, and 

 especially at the place where the road crosses the beautiful 



