8 Sir S. H. Howorth — The Scandinavian Ice-sheet. 



to most geologists, and makes many of them accept tbe extreme 

 glacial view. They fancy that ice, and ice only, is the possible 

 motive engine of the stones. The fallacy of this argument is well 

 tested in Scandinavia. 



The one thing which perhaps has struck me more than any other, 

 in ti'avelling through those parts of Central Sweden where the great 

 stones occur most frequently, is the fact that we cannot separate 

 them from the beds of stratified sand, the asar, etc., which occur 

 there, and are so clearly of aqueous origin. This provenance of many 

 of the boulders is not disputed. Thus Professor Geikie says : 

 " Erratic blocks are frequently found perched upon the top of an 

 as, or plentifully sprinkled along its sides, and sometimes also ttiey 

 occur in the interior, especially towards the top or the base." Again, 

 he says : " Frequently the shelly clays exhibit disturbed and con- 

 torted bedding, and they often contain erratics." And furtiier : 

 " The beds next in succession consist of marl clay, sand, and gravel. 

 They contain numerous shells of Baltic species, and large erratics 

 often rest upon them." 



I have myself verified this fact in various parts of Sweden, and 

 notably in the case of the asar and mounds north of Upsala, whose 

 backs are strewn with great boulders. How can we account for the 

 moving of these great stones by ice ? The postulated ice-sheet, 

 according to the Swedish geologists and those who have written 

 on the subject from personal knowledge of the country, had passed 

 away long before these stratified sands and asar were laid down. 

 It is impossible, therefore, to attribute the planting of the stones on 

 their very backs to the operations of an ice-sheet. If they were cot 

 carried and deposited by the ice-sheet it is still more difficult to 

 understand how they could have been moved by icebergs or ice-rafts. 

 Icebergs are only the calves of glaciers. The only stones they 

 carry are the stones carried by the glaciers. Now, glaciers do not 

 have great masses of stone of the size of huts frozen into their feet, 

 and if they had they could not roll them along so as to rub off their 

 angles as these great blocks are rubbed. If they had been carried 

 on the glaciers' backs they would be quite unweathered and angular. 

 Apart from this, the stones themselves come from districts which 

 could not at the time of the great submergence, when these sup- 

 posed icebergs were floating about, have been exposed to the air, 

 but must have been deeply covered with water. The water must, 

 in order to deposit these stones, have covered the tops of the asars 

 themselves many fathoms deep. If this were so, how could icebergs 

 or ice-rafts pick up the stones at all ? People who talk of icebergs 

 and ice-rafts in this fashion should visit the country and see where 

 the beds lie in situ in Dalecarlia, whence the big stones have mainly 

 come, and they will i-ealize how impossible and fantastic the notion 

 is, that either an ice-sheet, or icebergs, or ice-rafts could have moved 

 them from their original homes to where they are now found in 

 Sweden. Ice in anj^ form, therefore, seems quite a transcendental 

 cause to appeal to for the transport and deposition of these blocks, 

 and if we put ice aside, then, as 1 have said over and over again, 



