BY E. C. ANDREWS. 799 



lake-basins, spurless canoii-walls, and hanging valleys— always 

 and only obtained in glacial regions; knowing also that these 

 contours are duplicated in miniature along river flood-channels 

 (allowance being always made for the stage of development 

 attained); knowing moreover that these forms are again dupli- 

 cated, but still less in size, along roadside gutter flood-channels, 

 these last-mentioned forms being, by direct observation, undoubt- 

 edly the product of floods; and, finally, knowing that ice- and 

 w^ater-streams are somewhat analogous,(31) in general aspect; 

 might not all these contours be interpreted as the early attempts 

 of floods, varying in magnitude, to cause approximation of 

 their channel bases to sea-level 1 



An analogy drawn from botanical studies may not be irrelevant 

 in this connection. No one has seen any individual forest 

 monarch in all its successive stages of sprouting, maturity, old 

 age, and advanced senile decay, yet, even were the testimony of 

 history outside his own experience withheld, no observer could 

 doubt that each and every forest king possessed such stages of 

 development; in the first place because the forest abounds with 

 individuals representing all stages of growth and decay, and 

 secondly, because each year one sees the birth, growth, decay and 

 death of plant "annuals," these varying from the forest kings 

 only in points of size and longevity. The observer simply grasps 

 clearly the life-stages of the " annual," and then, from these 

 small forms, infers the life-history of the greater. 



To the observant, it is thus also with the small roadside 

 gutter-basins — the product of severe storms — the Amazonian 

 channel-basins, and the fiord-basins, the latter expressing the 

 summation of huge flood-thrusts. 



The writer's best thanks are due to H. Hoggan, Esq., for the 

 drawing illustrating the contours produced in a creek-base during 

 a flood at Bouralong in New England, N. S. Wales. 



Some recent Advances in Stream and Glacial Studies. 



At this stage it may be advisable to note certain recent 

 advances in stream and glacial studies, all throwing light upon 



