THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARTH-MOVEMENT HYPOTHESIS. 249 



Age, nor for the remarkable climatic conditions of interglacial 

 times. Finally, it throws no light whatsoever on the fact that 

 cold and genial climates alternated during the Pleistocene 

 and postglacial periods. 



The President. — I will now ask you to accord your thanks to 

 Professor Geikie for his Paper, and also to Mr. Chisholm, who 

 has so kindly read it in the Author's unavoidable absence. (Ap- 

 plause.) I now invite remarks on the Paper, and am glad to see 

 that many geologists are present. 



Professor E. Hull, LL.D., F.R.S. — As I come within the cate- 

 gory of geologists, and as this is a subject I have had before me 

 for a good many years, especially in my official capacity on the 

 Geological Survey, I am very pleased to take part in this dis- 

 cussion. We are certainly favoured this evening in having an 

 elaborate Paper on the subject of which the Author may be con- 

 sidered the chief exponent amongst British geologists. Professor 

 James Greikie has made the subject of glaciation his own, to a great 

 extent, by the publication of his well-known woi'k The Great Ice 

 Age, and this Paper contains so much that is interesting — and that 

 calls for discussion — a good deal of which I acknowledge was pre- 

 viously unknown to me, that I listened to it with great interest. 

 He leaves us, however, very much in the position, as regards the 

 question of the origin of the Great Ice Age, in which we were 

 before the Paper was read. He combats a view, or an interpreta- 

 tion, of that cause which we must not forget was originated, or at 

 any rate elaborately maintained, by so distinguished an observer 

 and interpreter of natural phenomena as Sir Chas. Lyell ; and of 

 course when the Author combats a view which has been elaborately 

 defended and maintained by so great an authority on Physical 

 Geology and Geography of past times, as Lyell, we must feel that 

 he is treading on very dangerous ground ; and for my part I fully 

 expected that if my old friend and brother colleague, Professor 

 Geikie, endeavoured in this Paper to demolish what he calls " the 

 Earth-movement hypothesis," he would have presented us with 



