522 Correspondence — Mr. R, Etheridge, 



similar lialting-places. Thus, because blown sand erodes, am I to 

 apply this agent in all cases where there is nothing in the nature of the 

 cases directly to contradict me ; or because a pebble on a sheet of rock 

 ma}'" most probably have been thrown there by a lad, am I to attribute a 

 big boulder on the same to the games of heroic youths in pre-PTomeric 

 ages? I may know that the Aletsch Glacier maintains the Marjelen 

 See, and yet doubt the existence of a vast ice-barred lake in Northern 

 Europe. Each case, as it seems to me, must be separately judged, 

 liaving regard to all the surrounding circumstances. From this posi- 

 tion, I have never consciously receded. I admit some tarns, I admit, 

 though with greater hesitation (for reasons which I have stated), some 

 ' lakelets,' to be the work, wholly or in great part, of ice. I cannot 

 believe that ice has been more than a very secondary agent in form- 

 ing the great Alpine lakes. 



I still venture to think that Mr. Miller's reasoning (p. 453) does 

 not remove the difficulty which I have brought forward as to the 

 forms of the Alpine valleys above the great lakes. I have tried to 

 show that there the glacier is as nearly as 'possible powerless as an 

 erosive agent, or at any rate that it has only superficially modified 

 forms, which we agree in associating with the action of running 

 water. The glacier has all along been " indentured" in a groove, but 

 it has been a thoroughly idle apprentice, till some cause, no more 

 permanent than the master's stick, has quickened it into intense but 

 brief energy. Como, Lugano, Brienz, the Konig See, and many 

 others, are vale-confined glaciers : so are the greater parts of many 

 other lakes. But with regard to these difficulties, I must content 

 myself by referring to what I have already written. 



One more point ; for I do not attempt to criticize Mr. Miller's special 

 Scotch case, as I have not examined the district. The Alps cannot 

 be expected to give much indication of the evidence of profile which 

 Mr. Miller demands. Plains of marine denudation cannot, so far as 

 I know, be recognized there. I am not aware that the sea has 

 flowed among their summits since a period prior at least to the 

 last great movement. Mountain contours, in the regions of most 

 lakes that I have mentioned, are so irregular that we cannot hope to 

 recognize clearly these curvatures in them, any more than in their 

 disturbed strata. It is a point, however, which I have not overlooked 

 in my investigations, and may say that, while I have found nothing 

 in this respect opposed to my theory, I have observed a few things 

 makiug for it slightly, but so slightly that I preferred not to bring 

 them forward. T. G. Bonney. 



CAEBONIFEHOTJS AND POST-TERTIAET POLYZOA. 

 Sir, — In the Geological Magazine for October, 1873 (Vol. X. 

 p. 433), I proposed the name Carinella for a new genus of Carboni- 

 ferous Polyzoa. I find that this term was pre-occupied, having been 

 used by the late Dr. Johnston for a genus of recent Nemertidian 

 Annelids (see Mcintosh, Annals Nat. Hist. 1874, vol. xiv. p. 154), and 

 I am therefore desirous of proposing in its place that of Goniocladia. 

 I described one species {G. cellulifera) , the-only one at present known. 



