1 70 REMINISCENCES OF 



sending them to a place that shall be nameless now, 

 though he named it clearly enough then. I tried to 

 rid myself of the rude fellow, but failed, until I 

 called upon the President to exercise his official 

 authority, and silence him. Mr. Wunsch ascertained 

 who this champion of orthodoxy was, and happening 

 on the succeeding Sunday to be in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Presbyterian chapel in which my 

 assailant habitually held forth, he went in, and, 

 oddly enough, found the preacher expounding to his 

 people what had taken place, and with what a 

 " Doctrine of Devils " I had sought to lead the souls 

 of pious Scotchmen away from the truth. 



It was evidently fortunate for me the days of the 

 Inquisition were passed. One of the most crowded 

 of the meetings this year was in the geological sec- 

 tion, where the Duke of Argyll was announced to 

 read a paper on the subject of the glacial epoch, to 

 the existence of which he was always opposed. He 

 knew, wisely enough, that the case of Greenland 

 afforded a strong argument in support of the 

 glacialists; but he disputed the accuracy of their 

 interpretation of the conditions of that country. 

 Our view has always been that it was a huge 

 continent covered by a sheet of ice of unknown 

 thickness. He denied that this was the case, and 

 argued that the country consisted of a low group of 

 islands, separated by narrow channels, upon which a 

 merely thin layer of ice and snow rested. Naturally, 

 my reply was that the huge glaciers flowing 



