GLACIERS AND ICEHEHCS. 71 



less closely connected with the direction of the current, is, like the 

 otliers, due to the action of a continuous eroding force on rocks of 

 unequal hardness. 



The ])rcdominant south-west striatlon, and the cutting of the upper 

 lakes, demand an outlet to the west for the Arctic current. But both 

 during depression and elevation of the land, there must have been a 

 time when this outlet was obstructed, and when the lower levels of 

 New York, New England, and Canada were still under water. Then 

 the valley of the Ottawa, that of the Mohawk, and the low country 

 between Lakes Ontario and Huron, and the valleys of Lake Cham plain 

 and the Connecticut, would be straits or arms of the sea, and the 

 current, obstructed in its direct flow, would set principally along these, 

 and act on the rocks in north and south and north-west and south-east 

 directions. To this portion of the process I would attribute the 

 north-west and south-east striation. It is true that this view docs not 

 account for the south-east strias observed on some high peaks in New 

 England ; but it must be observed that even at the time of greatest 

 depression, the Arctic current would cling to the northern land, or be 

 thrown so rapidly to the west that its direct action might not reach 

 such summits. 



Nor would I exclude altogether the action of glaciers in eastern 

 America, though I must dissent from any view which would assign 

 to them the principal agency in our glacial phenomena. Under a 

 condition of the continent in which only its higher peaks were above 

 the water, the air would be so moist, and the temperature so low, 

 that permanent ice may have clung about mountains in the temperate 

 latitudes. The striation itself shows that there must have been 

 extensive glaciers, as now, in the extreme Arctic regions. Yet I 

 think that most of the alleged instances must be founded on error, 

 and that old sea-beaches have been mistaken for moraines. I have 

 failed to find even in our higher mountains any distinct sign of 

 glacier action, though the action of the ocean-breakers is visible 

 almost to their summits ; and though I have observed in Canada 

 and Nova Scotia many old sea-beaches, gravel-ridges, and lake- 

 margins, I have seen nothing that could fairly be regarded as the 

 work of glaciers. The so-called moraines, in so for as my observa- 

 tion extends, are more pi'obably shingle beaches and bars, old 

 coast-lines loaded with boulders, trains of boulders or '' ozars." Most 

 of them convey to my mind the impression of ice-action along a 

 slowly subsiding coast, forming successive deposits of stones in the 

 shallow water, and burying them in clay and smaller stones as the 

 depth increased. These deposits were again modified during enier- 



