H, H. Howorth—Traces of a Great Post-Glacial Flood. 77 
ments of Cyprina exhibit Glacial scratchings (scratchings certainly, 
but assuredly not Glacial, H. H. H.), and that not a single instance 
has been recorded of the two valves of a Lamellibranch having 
been found together? Was there no friendly cliff or cavern able 
to preserve a single shell from the ruthless second advance of the 
ice? Mr. James Geikie finds the fragile bones of water rats and 
frogs in his ‘interglacial’ beds, and uninjured land and fresh-water 
shells occur in abundance, but not one marine shell has been found 
in the uplands that does not show proof of having been transported, 
by being broken, worn or scratched” (Nature, vol. x. p. 63). 
_ What is true of England is also true of Ireland. 
Mr. Bell, speaking of Ireland, says: ‘“‘The greater part of the 
country is covered with drift. local in its origin,” and adds, ‘It is 
singular that no fossils have been noticed in the gravels of so great 
apart of Ireland. <A few Mytili in Sligo, a Buccinum in Moate, Co. 
Westmeath, and a few fragments in Tipperary, appear to be all that 
have been seen.” Yet ‘‘at Boreragh, in Derry, the clay rises to 
a height of 1150 feet above the sea, and contains many fossils of few 
species. These are Turritella terebra, Cyprina, and Leda oblonga” 
(Grou. Mag. Vol. X. pp. 448-9). 
Ireland, therefore, shares with England in having the greatest part 
of its surface free from traces of marine organisms. But this again 
is only a small part of our problem. How comes it that no marine 
shells, except near the coast, are found in the drifts of the continent ? 
How is it that they should be universally barren, except on the 
shores of Scandinavia? Here Mr. Belt has made some very judicious 
observations : ‘‘ Excepting around the northern border of the Baltic,” 
he says, “and just so far as, and no farther than, the Scandinavian 
glaciers reached and carried up fragmentary shells from the arms 
of the sea they had crossed, the northern drift does not contain 
sea-shells or any other marine organism. For thousands of square 
miles, south of the irregular line J have indicated, up to and around 
the Carpathians, the northern drift is spread out, and not a trace of 
marine life, not even a diatom, has been recorded from it, while at 
its base, between the Oder and the Elbe, freshwater shells abound. 
To believe that Europe gradually sank down below the level of the 
sea until the latter had its shore-line more than 1000 feet up the 
flanks of the mountains, and that it rose again without the sea 
leaving behind it any traces of life excepting freshwater shells, is 
such an extreme hypothesis, and so contrary to all we know respect- 
ing the composition of existing sea-bottoms, that it is probable that 
its present acceptance is simply a survival from the time when there 
was no other way of explaining the existence of water up to such 
a height. . . . There is much evidence to show that vast continental 
areas were never below the sea-level from the close of the Palaeozoic 
period up to the end of the Tertiary period. Yet after this stability 
of surface over such an immense period of time no hesitation is felt, 
in the comparatively insignificant Glacial period, in sending the sur- 
face of the land thousands of feet higher that ice may accumulate on 
the now low ranges, and thousands of feet lower, that icebergs may 
