Sir H. H. Hoicorth — Erratic Boulders in Drift. 157 



at a time when the great Norwegian range of mountains could only 

 drive the ice on its flanks and on its shouldei"s down the fjords as far 

 as the sea, and no further, the ice on the low-lying lands bordering 

 the Christiania inlet was able to conve}^ its load of stones right round 

 the Naze of Norway and then across the North Sea to Yorkshire and 

 to Norfolk ! How is this to be accounted for by any sane theory ? 

 Suppose we postulate the possibility of such an ice-river as this, how 

 was it to travel, not along a valley, where the line of least resistance 

 would enable it to flow, and which was perfectly open to it, 

 namely, the hollow trough running up the coast of Norway, but right 

 across several valleys and downs in the bottom of the North Sea, 

 that is, right across the line of least resistance. Not only must it 

 have moved uphill and downhill, but also adopted in addition 

 a most sinuous and extraordinary course, apparently uncontrolled by 

 the contour of its bed, and for no reason under heaven except to 

 supply the orthodox geologists with an opportunity to test the 

 extreme gullibility of geological mankind in the nineteenth century. 



Again, if such an ice-stream adopted such a course it must have 

 had a tremendous push behind it, and this means that the slope of its 

 upper surface must have been at a very considerable angle, and if so 

 the ice must have been of portentous depth at the initial stages of 

 the journey. This syllogistic chain of argument would be conceded, 

 I presume, by everybody, even by the orthodox geologist. If this 

 were the case, how were the stones ever got at by the ice at all, for 

 the whole country must have been smothered in ice, and especially 

 the district of Laurvig. There could be no " Nunatakkar " to supply 

 the stones in a district so low as this if we are to have an ice-river 

 flowing thence to England. Again, we would point out De Geers' 

 map of the " End Morainen," or terminal moraines, of the Norwegian 

 Mountains (see Deutsches Geol. Gesell., vol. xxxvii, Tab. xii) 

 in this very district of Laurvig, and ask how they are to be 

 explained at all if an ice-sheet ever came down the Christiania Fjord. 

 Again, if this Laurvig ice-river came to England with its stones, 

 how was it possible for the postulated ice-sheet from Westmoreland 

 and North Lancashire to get out to sea for twenty miles, and leave 

 there its burden of Shap Fell stones which have been dredged in 

 numbers at that distance from our coast. Did the two monsters 

 embrace in the middle of the North Sea and then change places, as 

 we do in a quadrille, and dance a jig together in Holderness ? 



If we are to credit the account of Mr. Plant, who describes with 

 some deliberation the finding of Norwegian boulders at Leicester, 

 and another account which refers to a piece of rhomb-porphyr found 

 at Cambridge, the Norwegian glacier must have extended far into 

 England, if it came here at all. If it came so far, how was the 

 Durham glacier to cut right across it, in order to bring its load of 

 stones down to Essex ? 



And when these several glaciers all arrived, how were they to mix 

 their various loads, here with gravel, there with sand, and there 

 with clay, without mingling the whole of these deposits into 

 a common hotchpotch ? And how, having arrived, were they to 



