572 Correspondence — Mr. B. Hohson — Mr. F. A. Bather. 



in the Highland mountains being of such high antiquity as we have 

 given it — first, that it could not have survived the subsequent 

 deformation, as seen in the angles to which the Old lied Sandstone 

 has been tilted ; and second, that it can hardly have been longer 

 exposed to dissection than since the latter part of Mesozoic time. 

 Now if Professor Davis takes a geological map of Scot land and 

 examines it, he will find two great faults running across Scotland : 

 within these faults he will find the later Palaeozoic rocks tilted and 

 crushed at considerable angles, this being an area of faulting and 

 corrugation ; outside these faults, however, the later Palaeozoic rocks 

 lie at low angles, showing little evidence of disturbance, and we 

 believe not enough to destroy the old marine peneplain. On these 

 areas the later Palaeozoic l'ocks, including both the Old Red Sand- 

 stone and the Carboniferous series, lay piled in their almost normal 

 horizontal position, to the height of thousands of feet, and so pre- 

 serving the old marine peneplain from the action of the subaerial 

 forces which otherwise must have destroyed it; and presenting it 

 as we see it at the present day. It was upon this cover of horizontal 

 rocks, we believe, the river systems of the Highlands were first 

 traced. P. Macnair and J. Reid. 



THE STETTCTUKE OF GLACIER-ICE. 

 Sir, — When at Chamonix on September 24, 1896, I visited the 

 Glacier des Bossons. At the termination of the glacier, where the 

 stream was flowing out, the ice was melting in a most interesting 

 manner, which fully bears out the description and drawings of the 

 structure of glacier-ice (by polarized light) given by Messrs. Deeley 

 and Fletcher in the Geological Magazine, 1895, pp. 152-162. The 

 ice was disintegrating into separate pieces of irregular form, each 

 an inch or thereabouts in diameter (there may have been larger and 

 smaller pieces), and fitting exactly together, with interlocking pro- 

 jections and cavities, so that the structure reminded one of a toy 

 dissected map. Here, then, we have the glacier-ice dissected for 

 us by nature and its structure displayed to the naked eye, without 

 the aid of a polariscope. As I had no polariscope with me 1 cannot 

 say whether each piece consisted of a single crystal or of an 

 aggregate of crystals. Bernard Hobson. 



P.S. — Perhaps by immersing blocks of glacier-ice in hot water 

 the structure might be brought out artificially. 



TEE JUBILEE OF THE PAL^ONTOGEAPHICAL SOCIETY: 

 A SUGGESTION. 

 Sir, — On reading the interesting account of the work of the 

 Palaeontograpbical Society that appeared in your valuable Magazine, 

 it occurred to me that the jubilee of this Society might well lie 

 commemorated in some way more useful and more permanent than 

 the eating of a dinner. The practical proposal that I now beg to 

 offer is the outcome of considerable use of the volumes issued 

 by the Palaeontograpbical Society ; for that has led to the discovery 



