PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 85 



which we may safely assume are 50 miles in length 

 by 40 in width, with a thickness of not less than 250 

 feet, probably far more, all lying in one undisturbed 

 mass. It is suggestive that all the glacial deposits 

 which I have met with in Arctic and Polar lands, 

 with the exception of the terminal moraines now 

 forming above sea-level in areas so widely separated 

 as Smith's Sound, Grinnell Land, North Greenland, 

 Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya, and Arctic Norway, 

 should be glacio-marine beds. Throughout this 

 broad expanse of the Arctic Regions I have come 

 across no beds that could be satisfactorily assigned 

 to the direct action of land-ice; that is to say, beds 

 formed in situ by the grinding force and pressure of 

 an ice-sheet. On the contrary, so far as I can judge, 

 the glacial beds which I have traced over the exten- 

 sive area mentioned above have all been deposited 

 subaqueously and re-elevated." 



One of the strongest arguments that can be used 

 against the view of the marine origin of the glacial 

 phenomena in Northern Europe seems to me the fact 

 that we find polished rock-surfaces far removed from 

 the source of glaciers, and so exactly resembling those 

 produced at the present day by our Alpine glaciers as 

 to appear identical to the experienced eye. Most of 

 such striated and polished rocks occurring in the 

 higher mountain ranges of Scandinavia, and also of 

 the British Islands, have no doubt been actually pro- 

 duced by glaciers, whilst those in the plain, some- 

 times hundreds of miles away from the mountains, 



