248 THE GLACIAL OR ICE EPOCH. 



unfossiliferous ; while the third stage has more moraines, 

 ridges of sand and gravel, terraces with occasional shells, 

 and finally, in the lower levels, the silty clay or " brick-clay," 

 containing boreal shells, star-fishes, bones of seal, whale, 

 northern ducks, and other kindred remains. The local 

 differences may not be always ascertainable ; the general 

 order above sketched is unmistakable throughout the 

 British Islands. 



Cold and dreary, and inimical to life, as the ice-epoch 

 must have been, it has left its impress on every foot of the 

 surface to which its limits extended. The rounded outlines 

 of our hills, the gentler mouldings of our glens, the scoop- 

 ing-out of many of our higher lake-basins, the undulating 

 gravelly surfaces of our broader valleys, the terraciform 

 southern and south-eastern slopes of our mountains nine- 

 tenths, in fact, of that which gives character and colour to 

 our northern scenery are the direct results of its long-con- 

 tinued sway. Much has no doubt been since obliterated 

 by the frosts, rains, and running waters of the current era, 

 but the broader features chiselled out by the ice-epoch still 

 remain, reminding the spectator at every turn of its pre- 

 sence, and the long continuance of its power. 



