140 On the Glaciers and Climate of Iceland. 



the certainty, so far as we can venture to speak of certainty 

 in a science as yet but little admitting of precision, that the 

 supposition of a universal prevalence of glaciers over the 

 whole island is quite untenable. The same conclusion may 

 be formed, with quite as much certainty, in regard to the 

 Scandinavian peninsula. Much more, then, must the fable 

 of an alleged Glacial Period, which, for some time past, has 

 been pretty widely promulgated, though perhaps no one has 

 ever seriously believed it, be laid aside in the most decided 

 manner, as contradictory to all known phenomena, and be 

 finally driven out of science, as a geological abortion which 

 has come still-born into the world, and to which people, as 

 to a false idol, have, with no reason whatever, thought pro- 

 per liberally to scatter frankincense.* 



It is in the highest degree probable that the climate of 

 Iceland is subject to very considerable influences frona the 

 various currents in the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Arctic 

 Sea. Now, although, no doubt, the subject of oceanic cur- 

 rents is one which still requires much elucidation ; yet, in re- 

 gard to the general conditions of their motion which have 

 been established by numberless observations, no completely 

 contradictory opinions can prevail, 



(To he concluded in our next Number.) 



Description of a Portable Cofferdam, adapted specially/ for the use 

 of Harbour and other Marine Works in exposed situations. 

 By Thomas Stevenson, F.R.S.E., F.R.S.S.A., Civil Engi- 

 neer, Edinburgh. (With a Plate.) Communicated by the 

 Royal Scottish Society of Arts.f 



When it is necessary, in the execution of marine works, to 

 carry on founding or excavation in exposed situations within 



* The printing of these jiages was already begun, when the author received 

 the interesting paper by Leopold von Bucli on Bear Island, whicli was read 

 on the 14th of May 18-^6, in the lioyal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. In 

 hearing from this source, also, the funeral dirge of a misunderstood Glacier 

 Theory, he is rejoiced to find his own views in accordance with those of this 

 celebrated man. 



t Read before the Society, 10th January 1848. 



