Correspondence — Professor E. Hull — W. T. Aveline. 335 



THE EIVER OF THE BALTIC. 

 SiE, — In reference to Professor Bonney's letter in the GEOLOGrcAL 

 Magazine for this month, will you allow me to s;iy that some light 

 on the origin of the remarkable channel which follows the southern 

 coast of Norway seems to be thrown by reference to Dr. Kjerulf's 

 map of the ice-striee and course of the erratic blocks in his work, 

 " Geologie des Siid. und Mit. Norwegen," Taf. vi, p. 25, from which 

 it will be seen that the erratic blocks have been cai'ried for long 

 distances westwards along the path indicated by the deep channel 

 between the Christiania Fiord and Stavanger. On the other hand 

 the land striee point southwards; so that the direction of the ice-drift 

 on the submerged portion is perpendicular to the general course of 

 the movement of the ice on the land to the north. The question 

 arises, were the movements of the ice on the land southwards, and 

 that of the ice westwards, on the coast, contemporaneous ; or do they 

 rejjresent diiferent epochs of the Pleistocene period ? If contem- 

 poraneous, the land-ice must have been diverted from its normal 

 course by some opposing barrier; if referable to different epochs, the 

 erratic blocks may have been carried by floating ice along with the 

 trend of the current passing outwards through the Skager Rak ; or 

 they may have been carried by land-ice during an epoch of elevation, 

 while the ice itself, in the form of a great glacier, may have ploughed 

 out the loose material with which the whole floor of the Skager Rak 

 may once have been covered, and piled it up on either hand as it 

 moved along. The origin of this channel is certainly a difficult 

 problem ; but I feel satisfied it can only bo solved by considerations 

 connected with the movements of the land-ice over the unsubmerged 

 portions and those of the submerged. Edward Hull. 



June, 1899. 



THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY AROUXD CARLISLE. 

 Sir, — In your review of Mr. Holmes' Memoir of the Geology of 

 the Country around Carlisle, you state that '-the conclusions at which 

 Mr. Holmes arrived were not those to which Mr. Aveline and the 

 late Sir Andrew Ramsay could agree." As I have never seen 

 Mr. Holmes' Memoir, or knew that it was published, I do not know 

 what these conclusions are. But I have always maintained that no 

 part of the St. Bees Sandstone represented any part of the Bunter 

 Sandstones of the Midland or Northern Counties, but was more 

 probably represented by what has been mapped in Yorkshire as 

 the " Middle Marls and Sandstone " and the " Upper Magnesian 

 Limestone" (a very misleading name). I have never stated that 

 there could be no passage from the Permian up into the Trias, but 

 just the reverse; I have also stated that there was a much greater 

 conformity between the so-called Middle Marls and Upper 

 Limestone (which are classed with the Permian in Yorkshire) with 

 the Bunter Sandstone than with the Lower Magnesian Limestone 

 below them. My anxiety is not so uiucli for the retention of names, 



