214 Association of Geologists and Jfahiralists. [Nov., 



Montreal, and at Augusta at a later period of emergence; at this 

 period of emergence the ridges were deposited. 



He drew a parallel between the fiords of Norway and the bays 

 of Maine, in their deep and narrow forms; these bays having al- 

 ways near the same limits from the shore. 



On the Drift of JVew England and the River St. Lawrence, by 

 Prof] H. D. Rogers. 



He thought there was evidence in the lower drift, of great 

 paroxysmal movement; he refused to the clay the title of drift, 

 thinking it indicated a long period of repose: on this we find the 

 boulders. He maintained that the heights of Montreal w'ere not 

 the level of the ancient sea; he believes them the consequence of 

 a local paroxysm, surging it up the sides of the mountain. 



He entered into the theory of a paroxysmal inundation, caused 

 by an uplift in the Arctic ocean, to explain the phenomena of the 

 drift. There is no trace of marine organic remains in the great 

 northern drift; he could not explain this by the submersion of the 

 land. There are, then, three theories of the drift — the iceberg, 

 the glacial, the paroxysmal. 



He showed, on a map, the course of the curious Berkshire 

 boulder train, consisting of immense angular stones, wholly unlike 

 the drift of the adjacent country; diiferent causes must have been 

 concerned in its production. 

 • Prof. Agassiz thought that the experimentum crucis in these 

 opposing theories was this; the drift has no stratification, no evi- 

 dence of the action of water; and he defied any one to show that 

 the phenomena of the scratches are any where due to the action 

 of water. He could explain these local trains of angular boul- 

 ders very easily; upon the true drift, strata, with their fossils and 

 angular rocks, were afterwards deposited by the icebergs. He 

 could show an actual cause, known from observation to be capa- 

 ble of producing the phenomena of the drift, viz.: the glaciers. 

 Where can the opponents of this theory show an equally strong 

 argument in their favor? 



Prof. Emmons thought the glacier theory lacking in one im- 

 portant point, viz.: that the striie are not in America directed to 

 one cuhninating point, as in the Alps, in Scandinavia, &c.; the 

 lines of stria in America are in the same direction, not conver- 

 gent. 



Prof. Agassiz replied that no central culminating point was at 

 all necessary for the production of glaciers; they are a mere cli- 

 matic phenomenon; they form eveiy winter in our very streets 

 and gutters. As there are no high mountains in America, to 

 serve as starting points for glaciers, and to which, as a centre, all 



