SaBLE isLAND—MACDONALD. 275 
adverse current, melted away. A channel now marks the place 
it once occupied. 
As in the case of this small island land building reached its 
culmination and declined. So in the ease of the main island. 
Brought into existence by the current its maintenance would 
depend upon the favorable condition of the current. 
But when the great Bank of Newfoundland reached such 
dimensions that it interrupted and divided the polar current, 
sending one portion southward, the other on its western way, as a 
reduced and sluggish stream, the effeet becomes at once visible. All 
the western eddies or currents would be altered, the swirl that so 
aided in the formation of the island so weakened that during 
storms it would be converted into a confused erratic current, 
which, gnawing at the foot of the embankment, would topple 
great masses of its sand cliffs into the waves, as recorded trom 
time to time by eye-witnesses. In this manner the forces that 
called this island into existence may now, under changed condi- 
tions, be hastening its destruction. 
The first theory then is one supported by actual observation, 
and may be a prominent one in future investigations. 
I now turn to the second theory, which has for its subject the 
result of those great forces exhibited during the ice age or glacial 
period. 
That such a period did exist is beyond all controversy; 
although the condition of that period is still a matter of dispute 
among geologists. 
I will epitomize two of the most popular theories: Ist, that 
of Lyell, Dawson and others, who suppose a general subsidence 
took place bringing down each part of the land suecessively to 
the level of the water. 
Large islands and bergs of floating ice came from the north 
which, as they grounded on the coast or on shoals, pushed along 
all loose material of sand and gravel and byoke off all angular 
and projecting points of rocks and where fragments of hard stone 
were frozen into the lower surface scooped out grooves into the 
sub-adjacent solid strata. 
After the surface of the rocks had been smoothed and grated 
