574 Geological Society: — The Rev. Prof. Buckland 



have produced large salt-marslies to be inhabited by animals, the 

 remains of which are found in the clays superimposed on the till of 

 Scotland ; and he adds, that the known arctic character of these fos- 

 sils ought to have great weight with those who study the vast subject 

 of glaciers. 



In conclusion, the author remarks, that the question of glaciers 

 forms part of many of the great problems of geology ; that it accounts 

 for the disappearance of the large mammifers inclosed in the polar 

 ice, as \^ell as for the disappearance of the organic beings of the so- 

 called diluvian epoch ; that in Switzerland it is associated with the 

 elevation of the Alps, and the dispersion of the erratic blocks ; and 

 that it is so intimately mixed up with the subject of a general dimi- 

 nution of the terrestrial heat, that a more profound acquaintance 

 with the facts noticed in this paper will probably modify the opinions 

 entertained respecting it. 



Nov. 18. — The reading of the first part of a Memoir on the Evi- 

 dences of Glaciers in Scotland and the North of England, by the 

 Rev. Prof. Buckland, D.D., Pres. G.S., commenced on the 4th of 

 November, was resumed and concluded. 



Dr. Buckland's attention was first directed by Prof. Agassiz in 

 October 1838 to the phsenomena of polished, striated, and furrowed 

 surfaces on the south-east slope of the Jura, near Neuchatel, as well 

 as to the transport of the erratic boulders on the Jura, as the effects 

 of ice ; but it was not until he had devoted some days to the exami- 

 nation of actual glaciers in the Alps, that he acquiesced in the cor- 

 rectness of Prof. Agassiz's theory relative to Switzerland. On his 

 return to Neuchatel from the glaciers of Rosenlaui and Grindelwald, 

 he informed M. Agassiz that he had noticed in Scotland and Eng- 

 land phaenomena similar to those he had just examined, but which 

 he had attributed to dilmdal action : thus in 1811 he had observed 

 on the head rocks on the left side of the gorge of the Tay, near 

 Dunkeld, rounded and polished surfaces ; and in 1 824, in company 

 with Mr. Lyell, grooves and striae on granite rocks near the east base 

 of Ben Nevis. About the same time Sir George Mackenzie pointed out 

 to the author in a valley near the base of Ben Wyvis, a high ridge of 

 gravel, laid obliquely across, in a manner inexplicable by any action 

 of water, but in which, after his examination of the effects of glaciers 

 in Switzerland, he recognizes the form and condition of a moraine. 



After these general remarks, Dr. Buckland proceeds to describe 

 the e^•idence of glaciers observed by him in Scotland last autumn, 

 partly before and partly after an excursion, in company with Prof. 

 Agassiz ; but he forbears to dwell on the phenomena of parallel ter- 

 races, though he is convinced that they are the effects of lakes pro- 

 duced by glaciers. 



The district which Dr. Buckland examined previously to his ex- 

 cursion with Prof. Agassiz, lay in the neighbourhood of Dumfries ; 

 and the line of country which he investigated subsequently, extended 

 in Scotland from Aberdeen to Forfar, Blair Gowrie, Dunkeld, and 

 by Loch Tumel and Loch Rannoch to Schiehallion and Taymouth, 

 and thence by Grief, Comrie, Loch Earn Head, Callender and Stir- 



