318 CAV, W. p. JERVIS, F.G.S., ON THALASSOGKAPHICAL A\D 



liivor Valleys bordorin^-the British Isles," tlu' most important 

 pelagic features presented between Rockall to the north and 

 the south coast of Ireland, a.s well as along the St. George's 

 and British Channels, to their junction with the former line. 



With his permission I will endeavour to follow up the sub- 

 ject under his inspiring leadership, by pourtraying some of the 

 g-rand features of the North Sea, that is, limiting myself to 

 the region east of Great Britain, by no means intending to 

 invade his ground, but rather to show how he has opened 

 my eyes to luiderstand facts well known to me, but which 1 

 hitherto considered to be merely curious and absolutely 

 unimportant. 



^ly first initiation into these facts was when in London in 

 188(), my attention was riveted by Mr. Jordan's model in 

 the Educational Department of the South Kensington 

 Museum, and in which he so admirably delineates the British 

 Platform. Professor Hull's first paper dwelt upon the 

 phenomena of the Glacial Epoch, and I shall keep that 

 broader subject in view, hoping that these studies may 

 conduce to further results in abler hands that mine, anti- 

 cipating much from the discussion which may follow the 

 reading- of the present paper. 



The Glacial Epoch may, indeed, have been confined to the 

 period which dawned at the close of the Pliocene, as far as 

 regards Scandinavia, Scotland, Greenland, etc., or it may 

 not have been so. That is foreign to my present point. 

 Certain it is that Dr. Heim,* as also other eminent Swiss 

 geologists, accept two distinct periods during wliieh glacial 

 action took place in the Western Alps of Switzerland; the 

 first in Pliocene times, the later in Pleistocene times, with 

 an interregnum of milder climate. I have seen abundance 

 of boulders of Alpine Archaic serpentine and other ancient 

 rocks in the ColHna di Torino, which forms the last liidc of 

 the Apennines, a fact first pointed out by Gastaldi, these 

 boulders being embedded in fossiliferous ]\Iiocene strata. 



The structure and description of the portion of our giobe 

 which is at present covered by the sea is of such importance 

 and interest, in order the better to understand the nature 

 and even the genesis of a great proportion of that which 

 <M)nstitutes dry laud, that we must hail all investigations in 

 this direction as tending to fill up many a hiatus in natural 

 science. The scientific corps of the CliaUenger and JUake 



* Die Oeologie der Umgebung von Zurich, 1894. 



