338 Tertiary. 



of the Chautauqua divide, the battle between the elements of heat and 

 cold commenced in earnest. North of the barrier, the ice-king had 

 massed his forces; Lake Erie basin was full of ice, and all the reserves 

 of the north were freely moving down into it. As fast as one skirmish 

 line on the summit was repulsed, another was thrown forward; and 

 thus alternately advancing and retreating, the contest raged for ages 

 before the invading ice was forced back, permanently confined, within 

 the limits of the present lake basin." 



The Muse that divulged this information must have been slain in 

 the last glacial engagement, and remained for ages housed up in her 

 little sepulchre, because, otherwise, it is evident that she would have 

 told all about the grand glacial ball which ensued after the victory 

 was complete, when the glaciers danced quadrilles, waltzed and ma- 

 zourkied, and scratched and furrowed the rocks in all directions, 

 followed by cutting the "pigeon wing" and the great American 

 " hoe-down," when the glaciers shook the gravel, sand and bowlders, 

 which they had collected for war, out of their crests and huge de- 

 positories, and covered the earth, which in their great glee they had 

 cut up and striated so beautifully. 



In conclusion, the author would seriously call the attention of the 

 reader to the array of facts here collected tending to prove that there 

 is no marine or other deposit which represents a glacial period of 

 time, and, therefore, there is no such geological period; that there is no 

 gap in geological nomenclature into which it can be lodged or injected. 

 That the fossils and animal and vegetable remains teach us of no such 

 period, but quite the contrary. And, finally, that the glacial epoch is a 

 theoretical blunder, without the support of any known facts, and averse 

 to all our geological and palseontological information. 



