Mr Hugh Miller on Boulder-Glaciation. 161 



In 1859, Professor 0. N. Stoddard, of Miami University, 

 apparently unaware (like the two observers last cited) of 

 previous notices of similar phenomena, described in America 

 a group of 141 boulders of various rocks uncovered in a rail- 

 way cutting, and all striated in the direction of general 

 glaciation. " The agency of running water," he says, " may 

 be dismissed as utterly inadequate to explain the fact in 

 question. Icebergs driven by waves and currents . . . 

 afford a solution but little more plausible. Icebergs might 

 plough up the bottom and scatter the fragments, but could 

 not retain them in place. It seems necessary to admit that 

 they were firmly frozen into the clay, and thus held in posi- 

 tion while some overlying mass slowly ground off their 

 exposed surfaces." ^ 



Nothing has been done since 1859 that has, so far as I 

 am aware, materially advanced the specific study of boulder- 

 glaciation, except that here and there boulders have been 

 observed and recorded as having been found striated in 

 place. It does not appear that any of the groups have been 

 laid quite in the pavement form. Mr Archibald Geikie, 

 to whose review of the work of previous observers I have 

 been indebted for references, describes two "striated pave- 

 ments" (the adjective was added by Mr Geikie), one on 

 the coast of Berwickshire and another on the shores of the 

 Solway. Both of these appear to have consisted of a number 

 of blocks " imbedded irregularly " in the boulder-clay. Mr 

 Geikie pointed out that it was not as yet rendered quite 

 certain that the striated blocks had lain under true till ; that 

 they had as yet been observed only near the coast ; and that 

 their striation was possibly a record of " the second great era 

 of the drift," namely, that of floating ice.^ 



Since 1863, the instances of boulder-glaciation of which I 

 have fourtd specific mention have been recorded chiefly by 

 Mr Milne Home and Mr John Henderson in connection with 

 the Boulder Committee of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. 

 Mr Milne Home, not forgetful of his early statement, that 



^ American Journ. of Science, vol. xxviii., p. 227 (1859). 

 2 On the Glacial Drift of Scotland (Trans. Geol. Soc, Glasgow, vol. i., 

 part 2, 1863, p. 68). 



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