T. Mellard Reade—Glacial Geology. 37 
discuss any other points, especially bearing in mind the two years’ 
lease of this Journal we are assured will be required for a full 
consideration of glacial phenomena. 
Before, however, leaving the subject it will be interesting to 
examine the map of the British Isles in Dr. Wright’s book, on 
which the lines of the Irish Sea glacier are laid down by Mr. 
Kendall—not in black and white, but in red. We have been 
prepared from time to time for the evolution this glacier has under- 
gone to fit it to the new facts of glacial history as they arose, but 
I confess to feeling staggered at the “evolutions” it is put through, 
when I read the graphic description of what is euphoniously called 
the “‘Hasting” of the Irish Sea glacier, and the production of the 
Solway glacier, by a cleavage which took place at Ravenglass by 
the pressure which forced it against the Cumbrian coast. “The 
‘Kasting’ motion carried it up the Solway Frith, its right flank 
spreading over the low plain of northern Cumberland, which it 
strewed with boulders of the well-known ‘Syenite’ (granophyre) of 
Buttermere.” ... . ‘“‘Under the pressure of an enormous head of 
ice this stream rose from sea-level, turned back or incorporated the 
native Cumbrian glacier which stood in its path, and having arrived 
almost at the watershed between the northern and southern drainage, 
it swept round to the eastward and crossed over the Pennine water- 
shed, not, however, by the lowest pass, which is only some 1400 
feet above sea-level, but by the higher pass of Stainmoor, at altitudes 
ranging from 1800 to 2000 feet.” .... ‘This Stainmoor glacier 
passed directly over the Pennine Chain past the mouths of several 
valleys, and into Teesdale, which it descended and spread out in the 
low grounds beyond.” .... ‘The other branch of the Solway 
glacier passed up the valley of the Irthing and over into the Tyne, 
and out at sea at Tynemouth. It cariied Scotch granites with 
it,” ete. 
These be “fairy tales of science,” indeed, and we naturally ask 
ourselves on what is all this large superstructure of theory built ? 
I confess I can find no satisfactory answer—it is beyond me, and 
Mr. Kendall does not help us. Grant whatever conditions may be 
asked for, especially such as no one has had experience of, and 
grant them in any required magnitude, and it is wonderful what 
engineering feats (in the imagination) may be performed. 
For my own part I have been used to sober reality, and prefer 
the old fashioned careful weighing of evidence. When it becomes 
necessary to invent imaginary conditions to do imaginary work 
instead of rigorously reasoning out the probabilities of geological 
facts—all too few in many cases—I shall leave the seemingly 
congenial occupation to the poets and romancers of the science, and 
confess myself entirely unfitted for the prosecution of scientific 
investigation. 
