526 Correspondence — Mr. Dugald Bell. 



but resembling the masses of trap which occur in the Old Red 

 of Forfar and Kincardine. 



In short it appears that the facts of the case, with singular 

 perversity, resist all Prof- Hull's endeavours to place them under 

 the " saut water ! " 



Passing from this, the Professor makes the following remarkable 

 statement: "I would observe that the ice of the North Sea. . . 

 was only forced over the land while the North Sea was blocked 

 by ice, in which there were neither shells, star-fishes, nor probably 

 seals." Surely Prof. Hull understands that in all such cases the 

 contention is that the ice has transported materials formed in 

 the sea-bed before it was so blocked ? If he does not believe in 

 such transport, then he has to settle matters with Sir Arch. Geikie, 

 Dr. James Geikie, Messrs. Peach, Home, De Ranee, Clement Reid, 

 Lamplugh, and many others, before condescending to me ! Or are 

 they all " neo-glacialists " together, and alike smitten with " the 

 innate love of change " ? 



The Professor speaks as one standing on the shore of truth, and 

 looking out over a sea of error, of " the confusion which has arisen 

 among the neo-glacialists regarding the glacial phenomena of the 

 British Isles." It seems very evident that the sect or school of 

 geologists referred to (whoever they may be) did not make the 

 confusion, but only found it. 



As Prof Hull ends by quoting part of a private note from 

 Dr. Joseph Prestwich, I may also close with a sentence from the 

 same high authority — a sentence which may well be taken as 

 a guiding light in all discussions on this subject. In his standard 

 work on "Geology," speaking of those slow movements of the 

 earth's crust, of which the latest evidences are seen in our 

 " Raised Beaches," that distinguished author sums up as follows : — 

 "Continuous for long periods in the earlier times, and productive 

 of settlements to be measured, in Cambrian and Silurian times, 

 by thousands of feet, they have gradually diminished in intensity 

 and power, until, in the later geological times, those great slow 

 continental movements became limited to hundreds, and in more 

 recent times have become reduced to, so to speak, tens of feet, or 

 to a state of comparatively stable equilibrium." — (Vol. ii, p. 525.) 

 Glasgow, ^th October. DuGALD Bell. 



Postscript. — I have omitted to notice Prof. Hull's remark on the little sketch 

 map in my paper in the Quarterly Journal for August. He says — " On comparing 

 the lines of the ice-movement with the arrows given by Prof. James Geikie in the 

 ' Great Ice Age,' they are almost always at right angles : both cannot be correct." 

 This is very astonishing. I wonder what map Prof. Hull has been looking at ? 

 Let the reader judge for himself by turning to the map of the " British Isles 

 during the Epoch of Maximum Glaciation " given by Dr. Geikie at p. 69 of the 

 work referred to. There he will see the lines of ice -movement running up along 

 the Aberdeenshire coast, and curving round to N.W. across the Moray Firth, and 

 over the northern part of Caithness, as I have shown them.' Of course it is the 

 recent edition of Dr. Geikie's work that is referred to. Can it be that Prof. Hull 



' Anyone wishing confirmation of this may also turn to Croll's map of the 

 Ice-Sheet in North-western Europe, in " Climate and Time," or to Sir A. Geikie's 

 map of the glaciation in his well-known " Scenery and Geology of Scotland." 



