THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARTH-MOVEMENT HYPOTHESIS. 257 



THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 



I am sorry that my old friend Professor Hull is disappointed 

 because, in trying to knock the " Earth-movement hypothesis " on 

 the head, I have not presented him with some other explanation of 

 the origin or cause of the glacial conditions of Pleistocene times. 

 But I would remind him that the critic who essays to condemn a 

 work of fiction is, fortunately for himself, not expected to produce 

 another in its place. From the remarks made by Professor Hull, 

 Professor Lobley, and Mr. Upham, it might be inferred that I do 

 not believe in movements of elevation and depression. This is 

 certainly not the case : all that I deny is that we have any evidence 

 to show that the former excessive glacial conditions of Europe and 

 North America were caused by great elevation of the land. 

 Formerly I used to believe with most geologists that the Moel 

 Tryfaen deposits were evidence of a depression of the land to the 

 extent of 1,200 feet or thereabout, but after visiting that region 

 some years ago, I felt convinced that the accumulations in question 

 had been dragged into their present position by the old ice- sheet — 

 the materials having of course been rearranged by the action of 

 sub-glacial water. 



Mr. Upham merely reiterates his belief in the Pleistocene age of 

 the fiord-valleys of North-west Europe, remarking that it has 

 apparently been demonstrated by himself and other American 

 writers that the excavation of those valleys "occupied the closing 

 part of the Pliocene period and culminated in the early part of the 

 Pleistocene or Glacial period." This will be news to European 

 geologists who have long thought that our fiord-valleys (in Nor- 

 way and Scotland) are amongst the oldest valleys of erosion in 

 Europe. Yet if Mr. Upham's contention were admitted, we should 

 also have to admit that the fiord-valleys of North-west Europe are 

 of more recent origin than the great lake-valleys of the Alps ! 

 Mr. Upham strangely does not see that if the fiord-valleys are 

 simply partly-submerged land-valleys which owe their excavation 

 to fluviatile action, their age and origin can have no bearing on the 



