BUG KL AND 245 



extended his researches, the evidence, which he so indus- 

 triously accumulated, so far from strengthening his 

 position, began to gradually undermine it, and already 

 in 1837, when he published his great work on " Geology 

 and Mineralogy Considered with Keference to Natural 

 Theology," we find him wavering. While still asserting 

 the occurrence of a diluvial catastrophe, he was prepared 

 to abandon the view, which would connect this with the 

 Noachian deluge. ''It has been justly argued," he 

 writes, " that as the rise and fall of the waters of the 

 Mosaic deluge are described to have been gradual and of 

 short duration, they would have produced comparatively 

 little change on the surface of the country they over- 

 flowed. . . . This important point, however, cannot be 

 considered as completely settled till more detailed investi- 

 gations of the newest members of the Pliocene and of the 

 diluvial and alluvial formations shall have taken place." 



Scarcely a year had elapsed after this opinion had been 

 expressed when investigations were commenced which 

 were to cast a flood of light on the question from an un- 

 expected quarter. Agassiz in 1838 was already engaged 

 in those observations on the glaciers of Switzerland, and 

 had commenced that series of brilliant discoveries which 

 eventually culminated in a clear and reasonable explana- 

 tion of the so-called diluvial phenomena. Buckland's 

 study of these phenomena in Europe and the British 

 Isles had rendered him the first authority of the time 

 on this subject, though the cause of these phenomena, 

 as we now know, was really not diluvial as he then 

 imagined, but glacial. Buckland therefore was perfectly 

 familiar with all the signs now T recognised as characteristic 

 of ice-action, no man more so ; consequently when 

 Agassiz took him over the glaciers of Switzerland, and 

 showed him these agents actually at work, smoothing, 

 polishing, and striating the surface over which they 



