100 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



in that of the great Cordilleran range, was to the north- 

 ward, which removes TorelFs most important objection. 



4. The great facts of subsidence to a large extent in 

 the Pleistocene period, the effects of this on climate and 

 the certainty of the most extensive possible action of 

 floating ice, are not referred to in Torell's theory, and 

 would of themselves remove his objections, more especially 

 when we consider the probability that depression of the 

 plains was accompanied by elevation of the mountains. 



It can scarcely be doubted that had these considera- 

 tions been before the mind of the Swedish geologist, along 

 with the admitted limitation of glaciers to centres in the 

 east and west, his general conclusions would coincide 

 very nearly with those stated in the previous pages with 

 reference to the Cordilleran and Laurentian systems of 

 glaciers and ice-drift over the lower levels. 



It seems recently to have been ascertained that, in 

 Norway, the old beach-lines are highest in the middle of 

 the peninsula of Scandinavia, and descend toward the sea 

 level at the extremities. This would seem to indicate 

 that there, as in America, the older sea terraces belong to 

 the time of the greatest glaciation, and that, if the ice 

 weighed down the land in the manner indicated by these 

 terraces, there could be no height of land maintained to 

 send land-ice over the continent of Europe so far as 

 claimed by Scandinavian glacialists.* 



The results of the investigations of the " Challenger " 

 in the antarctic ocean are of great importance with 

 reference to the formation of marine till and stony clays. 

 The dredge may now indeed be said to have settled this 



* Matthew has referred to this in connection with the Pleistocene 

 of New Brunswick in a paper in the Canadian Naturalist, VIII., 

 p. 116, 1878. 



