156 Sir H. H. Hoioorth — Erratic Boulders in Drift. 



epoch respectively, and in tlie same book, I cannot understand ; and 

 it is inexplicable how, after such a statement, these most misleading 

 maps should have been retained. If it means anything it means 

 that there could be no ice-sheet shed into the North Sea at all from 

 Western Norway, since the ice there did not extend beyond the 

 Norwegian coast ; nor, in view of this confession, can I under- 

 stand such sentences as the following, approvingly quoted from 

 Croll : " The Scottish mer de glace must have advanced over 

 the bed of the North Sea to coalesce with the great ice-sheet 

 which at the same time crept out from Norway." Dr. Geikie 

 adopts this sentence, and then goes on to say : " This acute 

 inference was subsequently proved to be correct by the observa- 

 tions of Messrs. Peach and Home, who showed that the Orkney 

 and Shetland Islands had been overwhelmed by the United 

 Scoto-Scandinavian mer de glace" ("Great Ice Age," new edition, 

 p. 85). Again, "during the formation of the basement clay [of 

 Holderness] the bed of the North Sea was occupied by a great 

 mer de glace, which invaded Holderness from the north-east " 

 (id., p. 363). Again, he speaks of " the advent of the North Sea ice- 

 sheet, which as it passed to the south-west became confluent with 

 that broad stream of ice underneath which the Lower Boulder- 

 clay of Yorkshire, etc., was accumulated " (id., p. 375). I will 

 not refer again to Mr. Milne Home's acute analysis and criticism 

 of the case for the glaciation of the Shetlands by ice coming 

 from the north-east, as supposed to be proved by striae 

 coming from the north-west, but will content myself with asking 

 how Professor Geikie, having destroyed his Norwegian ice-sheet on 

 page 468 of his book, came to retain these extraordinary instances of 

 contradiction with himself on pp. 85, 363, and 375. I know of no 

 parallel to this so complete as the practice of a Scotch parson in Man- 

 chester who, having two congregations which do not agree with each 

 other, devotes the afternoon sermon to confuting the sermon of the 

 morning ! 



With the disappearance of this Norwegian ice- sheet disappear the 

 conclusions about the Scotch ice being banked up and thrust back 

 upon Scotland by the pressure of the great monster, and disappears 

 also the extraordinary notion, originated, I believe, by Mr. Jack, that 

 the so-called Tees Glacier was turned aside and had to make an 

 elbow, and then proceeded leisurely to the south in consequence of 

 having met with an impassable wall of ice in the North Sea. Some 

 other cause, less fantastic and less inspired by poetry, will clearly 

 have to be forthcoming if we are to account for the difficulties 

 supposed to exist in either area. We still have left for consideration 

 the Norwegian stones which occur in the maritime districts of 

 Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk, and the ice-sheet which is 

 supposed to have brought them. Let us see what is really meant 

 by this egregious postulate. None of the Norwegian stones in 

 question have been traced to Western Norway nor to the Dovrefelds. 

 Tiiey have all been traced to the comparatively low-lying western 

 border-lands of the Christiania Fjord. We are, then, to beiiove that 



