Correspondence — D. Mackintosh. 191 



from his study, seems to be the true position of the beds,, without, 

 however, exaggerating the certainty of such results? At any rate, 

 no matter how the final map may be drawn, it is hard to conceive of 

 any way but Lesley's (more or less perfectly followed) for making 

 out a continuous section of rocks that are exposed only at intervals 

 either on one stream or on different sides of a hill, if the fossils or 

 the resemblance of beds are not (as commonly happens) a complete 

 guide. 



You seem rather inclined to regard the hope that my Japanese 

 assistants should become accomplished geologists "in a few years " 

 as an " Oriental exaggeration." But 1 still see no reason to attach 

 a special geological sense to the expression ; though it is not to be 

 supposed that they could advance far more rapidly than we self- 

 satisfied Anglo-Saxons. Most of them can already make topogra- 

 phical maps with a facility that is unfortunately rare not only among 

 geologists, but even among railroad engineers. 



In speaking of the report it would perhaps not be amiss to com- 

 mend the Japanese for making public even so small a contribution 

 to geology, not only in their own language, but in one more readily 

 understood by a foreign scholar ; the first case of the kind under 

 any native Asiatic government. It is still doubtful whether they 

 will be willing to publish in like manner more voluminous local 

 details with maps and sections. Benj. Smith Lyman. 



Kaitakushi, Shiba, Yedo, 

 9th January, 1875. 



QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE GEOLOGICAL ACTION OF ICE. 

 Addressed to the Officers of the Arctic Expedition. 



I have been led by a long series of observations on the drifts and 

 boulders of the north of England and Wales to conclude that we 

 cannot arrive at a consistent and satisfactory explanation of glacial 

 phenomena until more light has been thrown on many questions, 

 including the following : Is the interior of the Greenland ice-sheet or 

 ice-sheets free from rocky debris, or is it more or less charged with 

 it? Is the base of the Greenland ice capable of pushing forward 

 large stones to great distances ? Is it capable of holding stones of 

 considerable size firmly fixed in its grasp, or of polishing and uni- 

 formly striating any stones not fixed in the subjacent ground ? What 

 is the state of the base of icebergs as regards being charged with clay, 

 sand, small stones, or large boulders ? Can a grounding iceberg give 

 a rounded as well as a flat shape to the surface of submarine rocks, or, 

 while endeavouring to regain its normal level, striate a rock- surface 

 down-hill ? Can a revolving iceberg scoop out a hollow in the rocky 

 bottom of the sea? To what extent can coast-ice transport earth, 

 stones, and large boulders ? Are there any instances, in the Arctic 

 regions, of floating coast-ice radiating from islands so as to distribute 

 rocky debris over an area of 90 degrees ? Are there any conditions 

 under which floating coast-ice, " charged throughout with detrital 

 matter," may deposit dome-shaped masses of concentrically -shaped 



