144 
der rocks, bearing certain marks of moving force upon 
them, covered certain portions of the surface of the earth, 
and that this sheet had been spread out not wholly through 
the agency of water. “Whether the vast currents of water 
which must have been concerned were the result of the 
sudden melting of the thick belts of ice around the poles, as 
Agassiz supposes, or of the elevation of the regions around 
the poles, whereby an ocean was thrown over the land, 
agreeably to the views of De la Beche, or by the elevation of 
different parts of the continents from the ocean, while the 
greater part of those continents was beneath the waters, 
according to Lyell and Murchison, I do not feel competent 
to decide. I rest at present in the position that ice and 
water were both concerned, and am in doubt whether geolo- 
gists will ever be able to go much further and remain upon the 
terra firma of logical induction. But to have reached this 
principle, in which I fancy nearly all geologists now agree, 
seems to me an immense advance on this subject, and for this 
progress inmy own mind I feel greatly indebted to Agassiz.” 
In another sentence he adds: “It will be seen that my mind 
was entirely unsettled as to the origin of the ice and water 
which have produced the drift, and that I was quite as 
favorably inclined towards the peculiar views of Mr. Mur- 
chison as of any other geologist.” 
These views, if they can be called so, were repeated by 
Dr. Hitchcock at the Albany meeting, in 1843, during a 
lively discussion on the Drift which was introduced by Dr. 
C. T. Jackson, with these words: “Many eminent men in- 
cautiously embraced the new theory, which, within two or 
three years from its promulgation, has been found utterly 
inadequate, and is now abandoned by many of its former 
_ Supporters,”— a rash statement, as we all now see clearly 
— Dr. Hitchcock saw its rashness then. 
