- 
54 Prof. P. F. Kendall—The Glaciation of Ireland. 
hand ”’ are in the right, not only a part but the whole of the glacial 
geology built up by patient labour of investigators from 1872 
onward is wrong, and floating ice must resume its place—our 
moraines, our glacier lakes, our unglaciated areas, all, all must go. 
And how does Professor Gregory proceed to make good his case ? 
First, as to the Central Plain, by an appeal to the evidence produced 
three-quarters of a century ago by Oldham, supplemented a quarter 
of a century later by Kinahan, of the occurrence of shell fragments 
at several localities, and one single shell identifiable by name 
(Buccinum undatum) from an esker at Moate. The whole evidence 
has been sifted again and again by Irish geologists, only to be rejected. 
In the Dublin memoir Mr. Lamplugh states explicitly the several 
grounds upon which the Geological Survey rejected the marine 
hypothesis, and Professor Gregory should surely make some attempt 
to answer these arguments before he undertakes to reinstate it in 
geological literature. Professor Gregory contributes one solitary ' 
discovery of his own of a reputed marine organism in an esker, to 
wit, lobate calcareous incrustations upon boulders, one of which he 
submitted to Madame Lemoine, of Paris, who identified it as a 
Inthothammum, a genus of calcareous alge, enormously abundant 
in the Polar seas. It would be interesting to learn how many 
specimens were sent, and whether any were incrustations of the 
inorganic type that are very common in limestone gravels; and 
also whether Madame Lemoine was familiar with the tufa-invested 
pebbles that are found in streams in limestone countries. 
Professor Gregory also found minute calcareous tubular 
incrustations—by the description, much resembling those due to 
deposition round roots—upon pebbles, and though Sir Sidney 
Harmer declined to admit their Bryozoan nature Mr. Alex Gray 
formed a different opinion. Dr. Gregory, however, considers that 
in view of Sir Sidney’s adverse verdict judgment should be 
suspended. To account for the extreme rarity of fossils in eskers, 
Dr. Gregory adopts Kinahan’s suggestion that in coarse gravels 
shells would not easily escape removal by solution. On this point 
an observation by Professor Sollas is valuable. He says that heand 
Mr. Praeger “‘ were persuaded that it only required careful search 
to discover traces of marine organisms [in the Maryboro esker]; 
we searched intently from early morning to late evening, but without 
success ; not a trace of a shell rewarded our efiorts, and this not- 
withstanding the favourable character of much of the material 
composing the esker, which from its fineness and somewhat 
argillaceous nature was well fitted for the preservation of fossils 
had these at any time been present’. Luck was clearly against them, 
for Kinahan found “ a few small fragments of broken shell ”’. 
But how does Professor Gregory escape the dilemma which the 
admitted rarity of marine organisms in the eskers presents ? He relies 
upon the supposed poverty of life in an ice-covered sea and supports 
the proposition by a judicious selection of extracts from records of 
