THE GREAT ICE AGE 355 



time and facilities being given, it may be done over wide areas. 

 Again, the iceberg is the child of the glacier, and therefore the 

 agency of the one is indirectly that of the other. Thus, in any 

 view we must plough with both of these geological oxen, and 

 the controversy becomes like that old one of the Neptunists 

 and Plutonists, which has been settled by admitting both water 

 and heat to have been instrumental in the formation of rocks. 



In the midst of these controversies a geologist resident in 

 Great Britain or Canada should have some certain doctrine as 

 to the question whether at that period, geologically recent, 

 which we call the Pleistocene period, the land was raised to a 

 great height above the sea, and covered like Greenland with a 

 mantle of perpetual ice, or whether it was, like the strait of 

 Belle-Isle and the banks of Newfoundland, under water, and 

 annually ground over by icebergs, or whether, as now seems 

 more probable, it was in part composed of elevated ridges 

 covered with snow and sending down glaciers, and partly de- 

 pressed under the level of ice-laden straits and seas. 



A great advocate of the glacier theory has said that we can- 

 not properly appreciate his view without exploring thoroughly 

 the present glaciers of Greenland and ascertaining their effects. 

 This I have not had opportunity to do, but I have endeavoured 

 to do the next best thing by passing as rapidly as possible from 

 the icebergs of Belle-Isle to the glaciers of Mont Blanc, and by 

 asking the question whether Canada was in the Pleistocene 

 period like the present Belle-Isle or the present Mont Blanc, 

 or whether it partook of the character of both ? and taking ad- 

 vantage of these two most salient points in order to elicit a 

 reply. 



Transporting ourselves, then, to the monarch of the Alps, let 

 us suppose we stand upon the Flegere, a spur of the mountains 

 fronting Mont Blanc, and commanding a view of the entire 

 group. From this point the western end of the range presents 

 the rounded summit of Mont Blanc proper, flanked by the 



s. E. 26 



