IcE IN THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD.—POOLE. 203 
mature as that of those to-day lying at the foot of the Cape 
Breton cliffs. In short, it suggests the formation of coal seams 
from which they subsequently parted, the deposition over them 
of strata weighty enough to consolidate them, a long lapse of 
time, their elevation, exposure to eroding influences, the breaking 
off of fragments subsequently rounded by attrition in moving 
water, and then their transportation from the shore of their 
birth to the quiet waters of their resting place, and that too at a 
time when the coals we now mine were but newly deposited and 
not yet consolidated. 2B 
What was the agent that transported these carboniferous 
voyagers ? May it not be assumed that the same agent that now 
does its work so weli and easily in conveying the pebbles of 
to-day to their bed in the growing deposits of the Atlantic 
played the same part in ancient times? Certainly, with one so 
capable as ice, what need is there to seek the possible ability of 
other agents to effect similar results. 
Sir Charles Lyell, in his Principles of Geology (Page 252), 
writes in his concluding remarks on climate :— 
“Tf we carry back our retrospect to the primary or Paleozoic 
ages we find an assemblage of plants which imply that a warm, 
humid and equable climate extended in the Carboniferous period 
uninterruptedly from the 30th parallel of latitude to within a 
few degrees of the pole ;’ and he goes on to say,“ while some 
indications seem also to have been discovered of intercalated 
glacial periods of older date (he is here speaking of the glacial 
period, as we know it) especially in the Miocene, Eocene and 
Permian eras.” 
In these passages and their context Sir Charles seems to have 
in mind only the action of ice where the average temperature ' 
was below 32° Fah., and not to be considering the action of 
winter ice as we know it, part passu, with a luxuriant summer 
vegetation. . 
But whence came these pebbles? Of lower Carboniferous and 
Devonian coals we have now none known nearer than the head- 
waters of the West River, to the South of the present coal field, 
where the seams are small and of inferior quality. It is to »~ 
