240 • The Irish Naturalist, [Sept., 



— to admit which would be to deal an almost treacherous blow 

 at our masters in the study of animal distribution. The land- 

 connexions asked for are not only possible, but geologically 

 probable ; but there is no real reason for making the barrier between the 

 North Sea and the Atlantic end oft, as is here done, at or about the 100 

 fathoms line. Any western extension, if drawn, would certainly be 

 guesswork; but it would make the proportions of land and water on the 

 map more akin to those of a region undergoing elevation on the west and 

 depression on the east. Dr. Scharff" quotes Mr. Maxwell H. Close and 

 Prof. Bonney (p. 494) in support of a greater elevation of the west coast 

 of Ireland in recent times ; but it is not made clear that such elevation is 

 not likely to have occurred en bloc, as an uplift of the present continental 

 edge. I am aware that map after map has been drawn in various works 

 upon the basis of some such supposition— a supposition opposed by the 

 variable heights of raised beaches or old sea-terraces on the actual 

 margins of our continents. Even the remarkable hollow between 

 Stranraer and Larne (p. 439) may be due to recent warping, and may 

 have had no existence until the glaciers melted from our steadily sub- 

 s iding shores. 



I feel that I have dealt unfairly by the mass of facts brought together 

 in this memorable paper in pointing out the wide field for favourable or 

 unfavourable hypothesis. Even w^here Dr. Scharff speaks with decision, 

 he may underrate the equal decisiveness of the other side. Though 

 personally I cordially agree with him as to the indications of subsidence 

 at Moel-y-Tryfaen and Three Rock Mountain (p. 498), it must be re- 

 membered that the advocates of ice-sheets are prepared to scoop cubic 

 miles of material out of the sea. Even if we do not grant this as the 

 simplest explanation, yet we cannot easily limit the area over which 

 land-ice has existed in Ireland (p. 494). The almost level ice-filled 

 centre, resembling the Malaspina glacier of Alaska, with local glaciers 

 descending from the hills would leave little of the country, as we now 

 know it, uncovered by solid ice. But these glacial conditions were prob- 

 ably dependent on considerable continental uplift to the west. In the low- 

 lands bordering on the old Atlantic ocean, Dr. Scharff" may find ample 

 refuge for the pre-glacial fauna, concerning which he has argued so 

 logically and consistently. As the land fell, as the great "piedmont" 

 glacier melted, as the esker-drift appeared, brown and barren, from 

 beneath it, the colonisation of the region known as Ireland began — a 

 region that probably represents only a portion of a tract of plains and 

 mountains once teeming with Cainozoic life. 



As I close this comment — in place of a review — the sun streams across 

 a land of mingled eskers, grown with grass and heather, and turns to 

 gold the last relics of the glacial lakes. In such a scene, the " revolu- 

 tion of the times" seems very near us ; and Dr. Scharff^'s paper, rising 

 from the realms of learned disquisition, appeals to us direct as naturalists, 

 speaks to us through the Ireland that we know. 



Grenvii,i,e a. J. C01.E. 



