GENKRAL CONCLUtSlONS. 2\)l 



snlmierged contineiitnl arciin, and the •greatest of these 

 analo<,'ues of (Jreeulaiid was, no douht, the ('ordilleran 

 system of glaciers depicted in the map prefixed to this 

 chapter. 



It has heen the practice of the more extreme glacialists 

 to attribute to their opponents tlio idea that all glacial 

 work is done by icebergs, whereas they should have known 

 that seas loaded with icebergs imj)ly land covered with 

 snow and ice. Icel)erg-work implies glacier-work. It is 

 these glacialists who have persisted in conf(Junding the 

 work of land-ice, icebergs and field-ice, in mixing up the 

 earlier and later drifts, in neglecting the effects of the 

 great movements of elevation and depression which were 

 going on throughout the I'leistocene i)eriod, in omitting 

 to consider the effects of the comparatively rapid move- 

 ments of this kind which must have taken place from the 

 crust suddenly giving way under tension, in confounding 

 deposits obviously, from their structure and fossils, marine, 

 with glacier moraines, in quietly assuming for glaciers an 

 extension physically impos.sible, in neglecting to consider 

 the possibility of tracts of verdure inhabited by animals 

 on the margin of snow-clad hills and table-lands, in exag- 

 gerating the eroiUng and transporting power of glaciers, 

 and minimizing that of sea-borne ice, and generally in 

 misunderstanding or misrepresenting the glacial work 

 now going on in the arctic and Ijoreal regions. These are 

 grave accusations, but I find none of the memoirs or other 

 writings of the current school of glacialists free from such 

 errors ; and I think it is time that reasonable men should 

 discountenance these misrepresentations, and adopt more 

 moderate and rational views. 



The facts indicate that there was an earlier and later 

 period of glacial action and dispersion of boulders, that 



