534 T. F. Jamieson — The Interglacial Question. 



glacier and the plateau is nearly 1,000 feet. Scott points out that 

 this land at the back of the Royal Society Range appears to be higher 

 than that to the north or to the south. This means that he thinks 

 the Royal Society Range is the end of an elevated mass of land, with 

 its length transverse to the coastline (i.e. east and west), and that 

 a measure of the thickness of the Antarctic Ice-cap on this elevated 

 transverse ridge would therefore be inaccurate. 



That Captain Scott found it approximating to the physicists' 

 maximum limit of 1,600 feet, no doubt is a very strong argument in 

 favour of the view that the physicists' extreme limit is never exceeded. 

 But when I repeat that the glaciation of South Victoria Land is 

 approaching to a minimum, and that all glacialists require a great 

 thicknessof ice to explain tlie phenomena which they have described, 

 I think it will be conceded that — (a) any thickness of ice may be 

 accumulated so long as the loss by ablation, melting, and discharge 

 is less than the gain by precipitation ; (6) that the facts noted above 

 are more in harmony with the glacialists' requirements than with 

 Professor Schwarz' contention that the physicists' theoretical maximum 

 of 1,600 feet cannot be exceeded. 



11. — On the Interglacial Question. 

 By T. F. Jamieson, F.G.S. 



A GREAT difference of opinion seems to exist among geologists, 

 not only in Britain but also in other countries, in regard to the 

 supposed occurrQuce of warm Interglacial periods during the age of 

 ice. Those who incline to the views propounded by Adhemar and 

 CroU as to the causes which produced the extraordinary' climate of 

 that time naturally look for alternations of cold and warm periods. 



Precession of the equinoxes and variations in the excentricity of 

 the earth's orbit are astronomical facts which must have had their 

 influence, and the changes they might bring about in the direction 

 and force of ocean currents, to which Croll attributed so much 

 importance, have also to be considered. These astronomical causes 

 and their accompaniments are not to be ignored, but their precise 

 effect upon the climate of the period in question is still a matter of 

 much uncertainty and one in regard to which our knowledge has 

 made very little progress. 



Mr. Lamplugh, in his recent address to the Geological Section of 

 the British Association, lays much stress on the absence of any 

 clear evidence of warm intervals or even of one such interval in the 

 British Islands, and as no one is better acquainted with the drift 

 beds of England his opinion must liave much weight. 



It seems to me that there is one important circumstance which 

 may have led to this obscurity and which has not received the 

 consideration it deserves, and that is the persistence of the vast 

 masses of ice which accumulated during the intensity of the 

 glaciation, and the consumption of heat required to dispel them. 

 The Scandinavian glacier alone seems to have spread out in some 



