Sir II . H. Hoivorth — The Scandinavian Ice-sheet. 11 



to it and to our geological creed. To those who, like myself (if 

 there be any), who utterly repudiate the glacial theory, there is no 

 such necessity. I do not believe that the animals and plants of 

 Scandinavia were entirely driven out and sought shelter in some 

 unknown region, perhaps in Jermyn Street or the University of 

 Edinburgh, and that they returned again in all their fulness and 

 completeness, without variation and change, to reoccupy their old 

 country. 



I beUeve, on the contrary, that the animals and plants of 

 Scandinavia are directly descended fi'oin their ancestors, who lived 

 in the same country before the distribution of the drift, and that 

 they have lived an unbroken life there since. A few species were 

 doubtless destroyed by the revolution which distributed the drift ; 

 a few have probably disappeared from the natural decay that goes 

 on everywhere among species as among individuals. The uplifting 

 of Scandinavia to 600 feet or more may have caused the disappear- 

 ance of others, or their migration to lower levels, but in the main 

 and substantially there has been no break in the continuous animal 

 and vegetable life in Scandinavia. The diluvian movement in 

 which I believe, and whose handiwork I have tried to describe, 

 doubtless caused temporary desolation in those districts over wliich 

 it passed, but it did not pass everywhere, and those localities which 

 were depopulated temporarily were presently occupied by colonists 

 from other localities which had escaped the scourge. This is my 

 view, and assuredly if science is based upon the discovery of rational 

 and adequate explanations of the economy of nature, the biological 

 argument here used must weigh a great deal in deciding the 

 problem. I only use it, however, as a subsidiary argument. 



Let us now consider a subordinate problem with which the one 

 I have discussed in this and the previous paper is closely bound 

 up, namely, the so-called Baltic Glacier. The Baltic is a great 

 stumbling-block to the extreme glacial men. This vast trough 

 intervening between Scandinavia and Germany and Kussia, offers 

 a stupendous difficulty to any glacial geologist (if there be one) 

 who takes notice of ordinary mechanical and physical laws. 



The Scandinavian debris which is found in North Germany as far 

 as the Carpathians is supposed to have been carried thither by 

 a vast ice-sheet, which first traversed the Baltic right athwart its 

 length. Neglecting all the usual methods adopted by moving 

 liquids and viscous substances, having found itself in this trough 

 it did not discharge itself by following the path of least resistance 

 but climbed the steep bank on the further side. How this is to be 

 explained I confess I do not know, and those who are responsible 

 for the postulate have never tried to explain it ; but this is not all. 

 The boulders which this ice-sheet is supposed to have carried to 

 Central Germany and to Britain are not angular boulders, such as 

 glaciers carry on their back, but are for the most part rounded or 

 subangular, and according to the Glacial champions were moved 

 along by the ice-sheet under itself in the form of what is called 

 a moraine prof onde (a thing which is quite incomprehensible to me). 



