Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 325 
The ground then which he (Prof. H.) took and still takes was that 
ice and water were the agents employed in producing the phenomena 
of drift, and he found that nearly all geologists of the present day ad- 
mit this position. He was happy therefore to find his views in accord- 
ance with the whole geological world. Geologists do indeed differ in 
the proportions in which they mix ice and water for this work ; but they 
all admit both agents to have been concerned. Even Elie de Beau- 
mont, according to Dr. Jackson’s paper just read, admits both these 
agents, and this certainly is an advance upon the views which have so 
extensively prevailed in continental Europe on this subject. Prof. H. 
did not feel as if we could safely go farther than to say that drift was 
the result of glacio-aqueous action, and he had some doubts whether 
we could ever go farther except hypothetically. Yet most geologists 
seemed not willing to stop there: and he had no objection to their 
indulging in conjectures in the wide field beyond, and he would always 
be happy to examine their ingenious hypotheses. And in regard to the 
glacial theory he could not agree with Dr. Jackson, that it was already 
dead and waiting to be buried. The late numbers of the Edinburgh 
Philosophical Journal, of the Geologist, and other European periodicals, 
loaded as some of them were with papers on this subject, certainly 
looked as if some vitality still remained in that theory or its advocates. 
He was particularly interested in the effort of Mr. Maclaren to make 
the glacial theory and the iceberg theory coalesce. Indeed it would 
not be strange if the true and ultimate theory on this subject, if that is 
ever reached, should be a combination of all the three leading hypo- 
theses which have been alluded to above. 
In conclusion, he begged leave to say, that he derived his first ideas . 
of glacio-aqueous action, nearly twenty years ago, from the papers of 
Sir James Hall on the diluvial phenomena of Scotland. For although 
that writer imputes those phenomena to a deluge, he loads the waters 
with ice bearing fragments of rock which must have scoured and ground 
the surface. And it is a little curious that while the late distinguished 
president of the London Geological Society finds the germ of the ice- 
berg theory in a paper by one of our countrymen, (Mr. Dobson,) some 
of us should have derived it from a distinguished geologist of Great 
Britain. 
Mr. Redfield said if any savans of Europe have set down our worthy 
first president (Prof. Hitchcock) as an incautious geologist or likely to 
be led away by novelties, we all know they are much mistaken. He 
well recollected having been led into a discussion with him on the sub- 
ject of the transportation of bowlders and drift some years since, on 
which occasion the agency of ice had been treated with proper scrutiny 
and caution. Mr. R. said that although then entertaining views similar 
