1894. SOME NEW BOOKS. 381 



On the question of antarctic ice, Mr. Geikie, following CroU and 

 ignoring all that has been written by Lord Kelvin and others, 

 actually postulates a depth of 12 miles of ice as a probability. As if 

 ice under such a pressure would not crush and liquefy and flow away, 

 and as if the accumulated evidence of all the explorers available did 

 not go to show that the antarctic ice has, in fact, a very moderate depth. 



Next, take the question of Greenland and its contour, upon 

 which a good deal depends. We are again treated to the story of 

 Greenland being a mass of islands, most of them low, which are 

 supposed to be covered with a stupendous mound of snow and ice. 

 All the work of the Danish exploring expeditions in mapping out the 

 Nunatakker, and going to show that the great island is in reality a 

 high plateau, is ignored in favour of Mr. Geikie's old view. This 

 is now supported by an obiter dictum of Mr. Nansen, who is not a 

 geologist, and whose dictum is as conclusive as that of any other 

 traveller who infers the depth of a deposit from the appearance of its 

 surface. As a matter of fact, it is as easy to know what depth 

 a snow mass is from walking over it as it is to know the depth 

 of the ocean from sailing over it, or the contents of a pie from 

 an inspection of its crust. Nor, again, in what is said about 

 the glaciation of Greenland, is any reference made to the proofs 

 recently afforded by Danish botanists that the flora of Greenland, 

 instead of pointing to its recent emergence from much more glaciated 

 conditions, points exactly the other way. 



Again, take the question of a ground-moraine, the invention of 

 an ingenious Frenchman, who had probably never seen a glacier, and 

 the main buttress of many geologists who have never seen glaciers 

 either. This particular postulate is used with the greatest confidence 

 and assurance, as if it had ever been proved or even admitted. 

 Mr. Bonney has, in this instance again, shown what a fantastic postu- 

 late it is as usually quoted. But it does not need Mr. Bonney's 

 assurance. Anyone who has carefully examined glaciers at work in 

 Switzerland and Norway can judge for himself as to this monstrous 

 invention. Where is anything like the supposed ground-moraine 

 being formed by ice now ? How is it possible to explain its formation 

 by any mechanical theory ? Of course not. Glacial streams sometimes 

 form a layer of rounded boulders, and sometimes, very locally, small 

 beds of stratified sand ; but how can we suppose that ice, whose 

 qualities are pretty well-known, can, under the enormous pressure of 

 5,000 or 6,000 feet, actually move under its foot masses of 500 or 

 600 feet deep of soft beds (in many cases of sorted beds) ? The same 

 ice which, when it has moved scores of miles from its original home, 

 is supposed to have such erosive power that it can scoop out great lakes, 

 and such momentum that it can travel up-hill for hundreds of yards ! 

 yet this ice is not only to thus carry under its foot these beds, but to do 

 so without breaking the shells sometimes present in it, and without 

 kneading the assorted beds into a heterogeneous mass of boulders, 

 clay, and sand. Assuredly the ice referred to is Saturnian ice and 

 not Mundane. As assuredly the head of the Geological Survey of 

 Scotland ought either to substantiate his postulate by some rather 

 more reasonable arguments or leave it to the followers of Swift and 

 of Rabelais. 



Again, as to subglacial water. All kinds of things are postulated 

 of it. For instance, while water running in rivers runs according to 

 gravity, and follows valleys and watercourses in a rational way, 

 subglacial waters are supposed to have been quite indifferent to the 

 contour of the country, and to have gaily travelled over hill and dale, 



