286 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vo.. VIII. 
could be no drift, for distribution by the ice sheet. None dispute the 
fact that in Greenland and the Antarctics, there are vast accumulations 
of ice; but who will admit that it can move in some extraordinary way 
independent of gravity and quite differently from ordinary glaciers? 
Croll and Geikie knew this, but they postulated that Greenland and 
the Antarctics are composed of low lying lands, which subsequent ex- 
plorations have proved to be incorrect. Dr. Croll virtually admits that 
we can nowhere even in polar latitudes, find masses of ice moving over 
level plains, still less ascending steep gradients, at a distance from the 
declivities, which give impetus to forward movement. He explains this 
by saying, that in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the seas are so deep 
that the power of flotation is called into action close to the existing coasts, 
and that the ice sheets have been thus broken up. Sir J. Ross’ soundings 
close to the face of the southern ice sheet prove conclusively that the 
Antarctic ocean is shallow, deepening to 1,140 feet at a distance of 120 
miles north from the ice barrier and is therefore too shallow to float such — 
an ice sheet as Dr. Croll postulates. Again if an ice sheet is an eroding 
instrument pressing with enormous weight upon its bed, polishing and 
striating it, how can it, at the same time deposit a layer of soft débris 
underneath its foot? Also how can we explain the existence of shells 
in so called glacial beds, sometimes at low levels and sometimes at very 
high levels, or for the movement of erratics up hill, or the presence of 
Scandinavian boulders, in the drifts of East England, or how can we ac- 
count for the fact, that the drift of boulders and the direction of the 
strie, are not always consistent with one another, nor the occurrence of 
cross hatching amongst the strie, or the fact that the striae marks occur 
in many cases in apparently continuous lines, traversing a wide expanse 
of country, utterly disregarding its contour and drainage. If we follow 
our water courses, or wherever there are evidences that water has run, 
we find strie marks, boulders and till are most prolific and the further 
we get away from these watercourses, the less we find. Mr. Hopkins says, 
“Blocks cannot generally be rounded by attrition, when floated on an 
iceberg, or carried on the upper surface of a glacier. A small portion of 
those brought down by glaciers are rounded by being rolled, but this is 
rough grinding and all specimens I have examined at the termination of a 
glacier, wanted that more perfect smoothness of surface which distinguishes 
a water-worn boulder.” Alluding to Russia and the Ural Mountains 
Murchison says, ‘‘A vast portion, by far the greater part of this drift, 
has we think been transported by aqueous action, consequent on powerful 
waves of translation and currents occasioned by relative and often paroxys- 
mal changes of sea and land. Now we are sustained by the reasoning of 
mathematicians, who show us, that with sudden vertical elevations, each 
not exceeding fifty feet in the case of an ocean of 300 or 400 feet in depth 
