516 
have large erratic blocks from distant regions been found mixed with 
the gravel of any of the older conglomerate rocks. 
One great cause of the difference of opinion between the dilu- 
vialists and the glacialists, is the exclusiveness with which each 
party would insist upon the agency of the cause which they respect- 
ively adopt: the diluvialist apparently errs in refusing to admit the 
agency of glaciers in mountain valleys that are below the existing 
limits of ice and snow; whilst Agassiz may have erred in urging too 
far his theory of expansion as the great locomotive power of glaciers 
over regions whose surface is too little inclined to admit their pro- 
gression by the force of gravity; a middle way between these two 
extreme opinions will probably be found in the hypothesis, that large 
portions of the northern hemisphere which now enjoy a temperate 
climate have at no very distant time been so much colder than they 
are at present, that the mountains of Scotland, Cumberland, and 
North Wales, with great part of Scandinavia and North America; 
were within the limits of perpetual snow accompanied by glaciers; 
and that the melting of this ice and snow was accompanied by 
great debacles and inundations which drifted the glaciers with their 
load of detritus into warmer regions, where this load was deposited 
and re-arranged by currents at vast distances from the rocks in 
which it had its origin. The contest will probably be settled, as in 
most cases of extreme opinions and exclusive theories, by a com- 
promise ; the glacialist will probably abandon his universal covering 
of ice and snow, and be content with glaciers on the elevated re- 
gions of more southern latitudes than now allow of their formation ; 
the diluvialist, retaining his floating icebergs as the most efficient 
agents in the transport of drift and erratic blocks to regions distant 
from their place of origin, may also allow to glaciers their due 
share in the formation of morains and striated surfaces, in latitudes 
and at elevations that are no longer within the zones of perpetual’ 
congelation. 
NOTICE OF DECEASED MEMBERS. 
In His Grace Joun late DuKE oF BepForD, our. Society has to 
‘deplore the loss, in which many other public scientific bodies parti- 
cipate, of a truly English nobleman, who was a liberal patron and 
an accomplished cultivator of literature, science and the arts. 
The department of science to which he was most attached was 
Botany, which he pursued, not only by collecting in the park and_ 
gardens and conservatories of Woburn the most choice and beauti- 
ful vegetable productions of every region of the earth, but by print- 
ing four splendid botanical works on the four great vegetable fami- 
lies of Grasses,- Heaths, Willows and Pines*. In the cultivation of 
* 1. Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, by Sinclair, 1816. 
2. Hortus Ericeus Woburnensis, 4to. 1825. 
3. Salictum Woburnense, 1829. 50 Copies. 
4, Pinetum Woburnense, 1840. 100 Copies. 
None of these works were ever permitted to be offered for sale. 
