ANOTHER POSSIBLE CAUSE OP THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 161 



to the elevation of tlie Antillean continent, the temperature of the 

 waters of Gulf of St. Lawrence even in so warm a month as Sep- 

 tember would be lowered from 33'' to 23°. The St. Lawrence and 

 adjacent seas would be ice-bound, and icebergs would be set adrift, 

 to float even farther southward (probably 1,000 miles) than at 

 present the Greenland bergs do, with a correspondingly lowering- 

 influence upon the temperature of sea and air. Judging from the 

 influence of a large number of bergs adrift in the North Atlantic, 

 in producing damp and cheerless summers in the British Isles, 

 e.g., 1877, 1878, 1879, &c., such conditions as Professor Hull 

 supposes would make summer in these islands a thoroughly 

 "glacial " one. 



Judging from what I saw of geological phenomena in Connecti- 

 cut in October last, the glacial conditions farther south were even 

 more rigorous than my estimate indicates. 



Professor Newcombe and Rev. E. Hill are dissatisfied as astro- 

 nomers with the astronomical explanation of the cause of the 

 glacial epoch. Sir Joseph Prestwich* has fully discussed the 

 question of recurring glaciations, which CroH's hypothesis renders 

 necessary, rejecting these glaciations as facts eithei'f (1) from 

 want of evidence ; or (2) because the geological evidence is all 

 the other way. As this and various other astronomical theories 

 are unable to bear the strain put upon them, we must, I think, 

 conclude that some geogi-aphical explanation is the more probable, 

 and that, as an uplift such as Professor Hull postulates would be 

 attended by glacial conditions, his theoi-y, or some modification of 

 it, may be accepted as best satisfying all the conditions of the 

 problem. 



The Rev. G. Crewdson, M.A., writes : — 



January YSth., 1898. 



May I be allowed to suggest a few considerations which seem 

 to confirm the theory which Professor Hull has so ably expounded 

 in his paper read yesterday on " Another Possible Cause of the 

 Glacial Epoch." 



In the present day it will be observed that owing to the 

 Antarctic cold the stream of heated equatorial water is pressed 

 northwards, a greater breadth of the stream being north of the 



* Prestwich, Geology, ii, p. 527, note. 



t Prestwich, Controverted Questions in Geology, p. 23. 



