362 CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 



Having thus briefly indicated the extent of Alpine glaciation at a former 

 period, it will be desirable, before proceeding to discuss the facts presented, 

 with reference to the problem before us, to describe the conditions which 

 prevailed at the same epoch in Northwestern Europe. For this purpose we 

 may begin with the Scandinavian Peninsula, which was the undoubted centre 

 from which the ice masses advanced over a part of Russia and, as is generally 

 believed, over Denmark and Northern Germanw Tn describing the glacial 

 geology of that region the publications of the Swedish Geological Survey 

 will be the aiithority chiefly followed, a work most thoroughly and satisfac- 

 torily executed.* 



The first fact to be noticed in regard to the glaciation of the Scandinavian 

 Peninsula is this : that the striation, which is usually very well marked, is on 

 the whole decidedly radial from the axis of the range. This is easily seen 

 to be the case on consulting the maps of the Swedish Survey,! and not only 

 in Sweden and Norway, but also in that part of Russia which lies betweeii 

 the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea, especially in Finland. This being a 

 well-established fact, we are furnished with a most valuable starting-point, 

 from which all the phenomena of the distribution of the detritus on the 

 surface, whether as effected directly by the glacial masses themselves, or by 

 subsequent aqueous action on previously existing morainic material, may be 

 satisfactorily studied. 



The Swedish geologists seem to have established the following sequence 

 of events on the Scandinavian Peninsula. At the beginning of the Glacial 

 period in that region the topographical conditions were quite different from 

 what they are at the present time. A large part of what is now the Baltic 

 Sea was probably land, while the Gulf of Bothnia communicated with the 

 Arctic Sea. The land now forming the Peninsula was connected on the 

 south with the continental mass of Europe. During the period of glaciation 

 the country was covered with ice, with the exception of the highest summits 



* See, especially, Expose des Formations Quaternaires de la Suede, Stockholm, 1868, witli an Atlas of 14 maps, 

 this being a resumi of the work in the department of glacial geology, by A. Erdmann, late Director of the Survey. 

 A considerable number of smaller papers on glacial subjects has been issued by the Survey since the publication 

 of Erdmann's larger work, in some of which views not entirely in harmony with those of the late Director are 

 maintained ; this is especially the case with reference to the much vexed question of the origin of the Isar. 

 The present writer also spent a considerable jiart of a summer in examining the detrital formations of Sweden and 

 Finland, and has quite I'ccently had an opportunity of seeing something of the surface geology of Northern 

 Germany and Denmark. 



t See Map No. 3 of the Atlas to Erdmann's work cited above. Also vaiious Norwegian publications, especially 

 Hbrbye's map showing tlie direction of tlie strire in Southern Nmwny. 



