Oorrespondence—Mr. James Durham.— Obituary. 070 
‘“KAMES AND DENUDATION.” 
Srr,—In last month’s Grotocicat Macazine (which it happened 
I did not read until to-day) there is a descriptive paper on Kames 
and Exskers in Norfolk and Cumberland by Mr. T. V. Holmes, in 
which he describes certain conclusions regarding subaerial denudation 
arrived at in my paper on the kames in this neighbourhood, pub- 
lished in the GronocicaL MAGAZINE Six years ago, as “ an instructive 
example of what invincible determination on behalf of a favourite 
agency can effect where zeal is untempered by discretion.” 
Leaving aside for the present the general question of the origin of 
kames, permit me to point out certain facts which prove that accumu- 
lations of sand and gravel do not enjoy that immunity from the 
action of atmospheric erosion which the theories of some geologists 
seem to demand. 
In describing the Newport Kames I grouped along with them (for 
reasons which it is unnecessary to enter into now) what is known as 
the 100-feet terrace. Whatever view Scotch geologists may take of 
the origin of kames, they are at one as to the terrace having been 
laid down in the depths of the sea, indeed extending for miles over 
all the low-lying grounds of the North-east of Fife, perfectly flat 
and even-bedded it stands patently and undeniably a raised sea- 
bottom, but it is no longer the continuous plain it must have been 
when first elevated above sea-level. In the neighbourhood of the 
lofty kames and in many other parts it has been eroded into mounds, 
cones, and ridges quite undistinguishable in form from the kames 
and even the broad flat remains of it, which form its most striking 
characteristics, when examined closely, are seen to be worn into con- 
siderable hollows by the action of the rainfall. 
Now when this comparatively recent accumulation of sand and 
gravel is so worn by atmospheric denudation, it seems to me im- 
possible to conceive that similar formations situated nearly 800 feet 
above the sea-level, which Mr. Holmes says can be seen in Cumber- 
land, can have remained practically unaffected by its ceaseless action 
throughout the much longer period which must have elapsed since 
Cumberland was submerged to 800 feet. 
Yet Mr. Holmes seems not only to deny, but to ridicule the idea 
that rain and rivers must have played the most important part in 
giving their present shape to such loose aggregations. 
This may not be “zeal untempered by discretion,” to quote Mr. 
Holmes’s elegant phrase; but it seems to me to be a striking example 
of the unscientific use of the imagination. Jas. DurHam. 
Newrort, Firn, 4th, November, 1883. 
@rS tate OA Ee 
——————— 
Rev. Proressor Dr. Oswatp Heer, or Zurics.! 
In Dr. Oswald Heer, who died on the 27th of September, at the 
age of 75 years, we have lost the greatest of Fossil Botanists, and 
1 A brief notice of Dr. Heer appeared in our November Number, p. 528.—Eprz. 
