CHAP. xm. WITH ICE LIKE GREENLAND. 233 



blocks, often of very large size, are of northern origin. Some 

 of them have come from Norway and Sweden, others from 

 Finland, and their present distribution implies that they were 

 carried southwards, for a part at least of their way, by floating 

 ice, at a time when much of the area over which they are 

 scattered was under water. But it appears from the obser 

 vations of Boetlingk, in 1840, and those of more recent in 

 quirers, that while many blocks have travelled to the south, 

 others have been carried northwards, or to the shores of the 

 Polar Sea, and others north-eastward, or to those of the White 

 Sea. In fact, they have wandered towards all points of the 

 compass, from the mountains of Scandinavia as a centre, and 

 the rectilinear furrows imprinted by them on the polished 

 surfaces of the mountains where the rocks are hard enough to 

 retain such markings, radiate in all directions, or point out 

 wards from the highest land, in a manner corresponding to 

 the course of the erratics above mentioned. 



Before the glacial theory was adopted, the Swedish and 

 Norwegian geologists speculated on a great flood, or the 

 sudden rush of an enormous body of water charged with mud 

 and stones, descending from the central heights or watershed 

 into the adjoining lower lands. The erratic blocks were sup 

 posed in their downward passage to have smoothed and 

 striated the rock surfaces over which they were forced along. 



It would be a waste of time, in the present state of science, 

 to controvert this hypothesis, as it is now admitted that even 

 if the rush of a diluvial current, invented for the occasion 

 and wholly without analogy in the known course of nature, 

 be granted, it would be inadequate to explain the uniformity, 

 parallelism, persistency, and rectilinearity of the so-called 

 glacial furrows. It is moreover ascertained that heavy 

 masses of rock, not fixed in ice, and moving as freely as they 

 do when simply swept along by a muddy current, do not 

 give rise to such scratches and furrows. 



