APPLICATION OF FACTS REGARDING ICE-ACTION. 55 



Royal Society's 'Manual of the Natural History of Greenland,' as 

 well as in the instructions by the distinguished head of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Great Britain — than whom there is no higher 

 authority on the subject in Britain — will doubtless enter fully into 

 the application of the foregoing facts as affording some explanation 

 of the puzzling deposits of late geological age in Britain, and other 

 portions of the northern hemisphere, and known as the " glacial 

 beds " or remains. We are still far from understanding fully all the 

 phenomena presented by these glacial remains. Still, as it is only 

 by the study of a country like Greenland, which is in a condition 

 similar to that which Scotland and a great portion of the northern 

 hemisphere are believed to have been during the glacial period, it 

 may be well, though this is not the place for geological details, 

 to briefly recapitulate the general conclusions which I have arrived 

 at from the study of Greenland ice : — 



(1.) The brick clays or laminated fossiliferous clays of Scotland, 

 &c, are exactly the same as the clays now filling up the Greenland 

 fjords from the mud-laden streams which flow from under the glaciers, 

 and are due to the same or similar agents acting during the " Glacial 

 period." These agents must have been acting at that period, and 

 the clay formed from these sub-glacial streams has never yet been 

 accounted for. 



(2.) The non-fossil if erous " till," though there are still appear- 

 ances in this non-stratified deposit that we cannot account for, is in 

 all likelihood the representation of the moraine profonde of the great 

 ice-cap. Had it been moraine dropped from icebergs, as has been 

 argued, even supposing that icebergs could deposit it so uniformly 

 over great tracts and to such a thickness, it would have been 

 fossiliferous and stratified. It is neither. (3.) Kaimes, Osars, 1 

 Escars, &c, are only the "banks" of the old glacial seas. Some 

 may be of fresh-water origin, but most are marine. (4.) The angular 

 " travelled blocks " (the " foundlings " of the Swiss mountaineers) 

 have been dropped by icebergs floating over the submerged country. 

 The rounded ice-borne boulders are part of the moraine profonde. 



The conclusions thus briefly summarised, with the deductions as 

 to the former state of Scotland, will be found fully stated in tho 

 memoirs and works referred to. Lastly, the observer ought to 

 guard against supposing that, in the old glacial seas or on tho 

 glacial lands, life was poor., If we are to judge the past by tho 

 present, wo have no right to suppose any such thing. 



The rarity of life in many of tho glacial beds need not be 



1 A Swedish word so pronounced, but written dsar or Aasar. 



