Bugald Bell — The " Great Submergence.'* 65 



would ask him to say how he knows. If by observation, where and 

 how were the observations conducted ? if by testimony, who are his 

 authors ? if by intuition, there we must leave him. 



(2) Mr. Smith states that if the shelly clay had been deposited by 

 the ice in an extra-glacial lake (as the present writer supposed) •' it 

 ought to have contained abundance of vegetable matter, fresh-water 

 mollusca, fresh-water diatoms, fresh-water Ostracoda, etc." In reply 

 to this it was pointed out, when Mr. Smith read his paper to the 

 Glasgow Society, that such glacial lakes are notable for the absence 

 of organisms of any kind, for the azoic character of their sediments. 

 Such instances were referred to as the Merjelen See in Switzerland, 

 the beaches of the old glacial lakes in Glen Roy (which, because 

 they do not contain fresh-water organisms, some argue must be 

 marine, not seeing that there is a greater difficulty on that side 

 in the total absence of marine organisms), and the mud or clay 

 deposits of the old glacial "Lake Humber," traced out in England 

 by the late Professor Carvill Lewis, which, he remarks, is " entirely 

 devoid of traces of animal life, and the only bodies of water known 

 to be so are lakes bordering on glaciers."^ 



These facts, we say, w^ere pressed upon Mr. Smith's attention 

 when his paper was read. Are they not relevant, or of importance 

 as bearing on the point in hand ? Why, then, does he not meet 

 and answer them, instead of simply passing them by and repeating 

 his original assertion, which they disprove? Does he imagine he 

 can carry his case by sheer reiteration ? Apparently ! '^ 



(3) In some respects, it must be admitted, Mr. Smith's " interpre- 

 tation " of the section is original. He deals largely in hypothetical 

 " currents," and manipulates them as " surface " or " bottom " 

 currents according to his requirements. Thus we are told : '• The 

 Clava shelly clay 8a3's — 'J am a mud ; there toere no currents flowing 

 where I was laid doion.' ... It is a deep-water deposit formed in the 

 sea where there were no bottom currents. ... It was formed in deep 

 water by surface currents." On the other hand, the bed of fine sand 

 overlying it, 20 feet in thickness, was " formed by bottom currents." 

 (Geol. Mag., November, 1896, pp. 500-2.) Mr. Smith reads it all 

 off as easily as Dr. Hornbook rattled over the Latin names of his 

 medicines — " like A B C." But let us consider. How do we get 

 these surface and bottom currents so conveniently ? Between these 

 two members of the series — the fine clay and the overlying sand — 

 was the land " hitched up " some 700 or 800 feet, so that what was 



1 H. Carvill Lewis, " Glacial Geology of Great Britain," p. 58. 



^ Another matter of complaint which we have against Mr. Smith is in regard to 

 a foolish trick he has of exaggeration. Thus he says; "In the Clava case the 

 marine material would require to have travelled over ' hill and dale ' some ten miles." 

 (See Geol. Mag., November, 1896, p. 500.) Now, in previous papers it was pointed 

 out that the slope from the level of Loch Ness to Clava is exceedingly gentle ; that 

 this is a feature which strikes one from various points of view in the neighbourhood ; 

 and that a rise of 500 feet in ten miles, or one in a hundred, is so small as to be 

 practically imperceptible. Those statements no doubt Mr. Smith has read, and he 

 makes a show of having " regard to facts." Why, then, does he lay on with the big 

 brush " over hill and dale " ? 



DECADE IT. VOL. IT. NO. II. 5 



