WAEEEN UPHAM, ESQ., ON CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 231 



" earth movement hT/jMthesis," but which he prefers to designate 

 by the title of "the epeirogenic tJieorij.'" Well, there is not 

 much in a name, but, to be quite accurate, the view in question 

 has not advanced to the stage of being a theory. To my 

 mind it is only a conjectural explanation, which, as I endea- 

 voured to show in a paper lately read before this Society, has 

 no geological evidence to support it. To the arguments I have 

 advanced, Mr. Upham has not replied, save in the most cursory 

 manner ; and, as I shall presently show, his reply practically 

 implies the condemnation of the hypothesis. As to the drowned 

 river-channels which geologists have known about for many 

 years, — their existence is admitted. They and the fiords of JnT.W. 

 Europe and 1^. Amei'ica have long been recognised as yielding- 

 evidence of a former wider and more elevated condition of those 

 regions. It has also been long known to geologists that the 

 excavation of those now submerged or partially submerged 

 valleys took place and was practically completed in ages long 

 anterior to the advent of the Glacial Period. I must express 

 my astonishment, therefore, that Mr. Upham shou.ld cite the 

 existence of fiords, etc., in support of his " epeirogenic " hypo- 

 thesis. So far from lending that hypothesis any support, the fiords 

 and drowned river-channels supply most convincing evidence 

 against it. What they show us is that a wide and elevated 

 laud-surface existed for a protracted period of time in temperate 

 latitudes without inducing extensive glaciation. The fiords 

 occupy valleys cut by rivers in elevated plateaux of erosion. 

 Dui^ng that period of elevation, rain and rivers, not snow and ice, 

 were the chief denuding agents. It was not until long after the 

 fiord valleys had come into existence that the great mers de glace 

 of the Glacial Period made their appearance. To appeal to the 

 existence of fiords as testimony in favour of a great continental 

 elevation in glacial times is, to my mind, an instance of putting 

 the cart before the horse.* 



In my paper already referred to I have drawn attention 

 to the fact that the only direct evidence we have of the 

 geographical conditions that obtained immediately prior to 



* Professor E. Hull, LL.D., F.E.S., remarks on this, October, 1897 :— 

 " Yes, but all the while the gradual elevation of the lands may have been 

 preparing the way for the commencement of the glacial conditious." — Ed. 



