95 



except that of their having been transported by a cur- 

 rent from high northern regions, enveloped in enor- 

 mous masses of ice ; and from no other point ; for it 

 would be absurd in the extreme, to suppose that masses 

 of ice could have been formed in the torrid zone, or 

 even within the temperate zone, of sufficient magnitude 

 to have transported those rocks from the south to their 

 present situation. Hence, the conclusion is, that they 

 were brought there by the same current, that once flow- 

 ed from the north east to the south west, or from north 

 to south, over the surface of the whole continent of 

 America, 



This opinion receives additional support from the 

 following circumstance ; the huge fields and mountains 

 of ice, which every spring float down the Atlantic 

 ocean, seldom reach the latitude of from 89 to 40, 

 which is about the latitude in which those rocks lie, 

 before they become so weak and rotten as to be incapa- 

 ble of supporting, or retaining any considerable weight 

 that might be attached to them. It therefore fol- 

 lows as a natural consequence, that by the time the 

 masses of ice had reached those latitudes, they must 

 necessarily have discharged the entire balance of their 

 freight, if they contained any. 



On the few remaining facts, which I shall notice in 

 the present instance, 1 might repose in entire confi- 

 dence ; deeming them, alone, sufficient to prove, not 

 only the existence of a general current, setting from the 

 north east to the south we&t, across the continent of 

 America ; but that nearly the entire alluvial district, 



