110 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



bergen, I have no longer any doubt or hesitation in 

 believing that the mounds are the lateral and ter- 

 minal moraines of ancient glaciers, which filled the 

 glen in times when the climate and appearance of 

 Scotland must have been very analogous to that of 

 Spitsbergen at the present day ; when perhaps the 

 seal and the walrus sunned themselves (fearless of 

 harpoons and conical bullets) on fields of ice, drift- 

 ing about among a "wintry archipelago 1 ' of barren 

 islands, and hunted their prey on submarine banks, 

 now fertile land, and rented at £b an acre. The 

 shells, those insignificant but yet most powerful ex- 

 ponents of the past, show that this is more than 

 mere hypothesis, for most of the shells now inhab- 

 iting the Arctic seas, although no longer found 

 alive in British waters, are dug up in large quanti- 

 ties in the Pleistocene beds in some parts of Scot- 

 land, and particularly in my own immediate neigh- 

 borhood at Ballinakilly Bay, in the island of Bute. 

 I kept pondering and reflecting on these subjects 

 as we rowed along the sterile shores of this gloom\ 

 fiord. After rowing about twelve miles we came 

 to a slight promontory, and on rounding this we 

 perceived a long low line of flat ice, extending right 

 across the fiord, which was here not more than four 

 miles broad. This was "fast" ice of last winter's 

 growth, and was the outer edge of a sheet which 

 covered the upper end of the fiord for about six 

 miles of its length. This was the first large piece 

 of "fast" ice I had seen, and the day being bright. 



