RECENT GLACIAL DISCOVERIES IN ENGLAND. 169 



RECENT GLACIAL DISCOVERIES IN" ENGLAND. 



THE accompanying map, prepared for Prof. Wright's new 

 work on Man and the Glacial Period from data furnished by 

 the latest investigations in Great Britain, embodies a vast amount 

 of information, and for the most part tells its own story. It is 

 largely the outcome of the work of the late Prof. Carvill Lewis, 

 whose untimely death left his large collection of English notes still 

 unpublished. But, in response to the interest aroused by him, a 

 society embracing the most active geologists of northern England 

 was formed to follow out and complete his work. The president 

 of this society is Prof. Percy F. Kendall, now of Leeds, who pre- 

 pared the chapter on the glacial geology of Great Britain for 

 Prof. Wright's book, and who has furnished the principal data 

 for the construction of this map. We are glad to be informed 

 also that the field notes of Prof. Lewis, under the joint editorship 

 of Rev. Dr. Crosskey, of Birmingham, and Prof. Kendall, are soon 

 to be published by Mrs. Lewis in England. 



Prof. Lewis was the first one to attempt a careful delineation 

 of the boundary of glacial action in England and Ireland, as he 

 was one of the first to do this work in the United States. Soon 

 after Profs. Cook and Smock, of New Jersey, had published their 

 map of the terminal moraine in New Jersey, Profs. Lewis and 

 Wright took up the task of following it out through Pennsylva- 

 nia. The results of their work there are embodied in Volume Z 

 of the Geological Report of that State. Upon completing this 

 work the two professors, by previous arrangement, divided the 

 work of exploration — Prof. Wright carefully surveying the line 

 westward to the Mississippi River, and with more or less care 

 to Alaska, while Prof. Lewis went to England to do the work of 

 which we have spoken there. Last year Prof. Wright also went 

 to England, at the request of those who were following up Prof. 

 Lewis's work there, and went over a large part of the most im- 

 portant ground under their lead; hence an unusual degree of con- 

 fidence can be placed in the results which have been for the first 

 time systematically presented in this map and the accompanying 

 description. Space will permit us to give but the very briefest 

 summary of the conclusions respecting English glacial geology, 

 some of which are really revolutionary. 



In the first place the investigations demonstrate beyond 

 controversy that the glacial phenomena in the British Isles are 

 the product of land ice, and not of floating ice. This may not 

 seem very important to American geologists, who are all of 

 one mind, but in England it means a good deal, where there are 

 many who still cling to the old idea that icebergs and not glaciers 



