D. Milne Some — Glaciation of the Shetlands. 451 



have been left in the depths of these sounds, instead of being 

 " carried to the hills." 



(2). Messrs. Peach and Home, in their original paper, laid great 

 stress on the fact that all the boulders, and especially those on the 

 west shores of the islands, came from the eastward. No reference 

 was made to boulders which previous observers had discovered, and 

 had traced to quarters quite at variance with the alleged course of 

 the mer de glace. 



These boulders are on Papa Stour, Foula, Hilswick, and Eoeness. 

 In no case, do Messrs. Peach and Home deny that these boulders 

 exist, or dispute that they came in the directions poinied out. 



Messrs. Peach and Home do not and cannot say, that they could 

 have been transported by their mer de glace. Their Memoir and 

 Map alike forbade such a suggestion. A different agency altogether, 

 therefore, must be thought of for them. 



(3). Then there is the distinct record of observations by Mr. 

 Peach [senior), which are equally at variance with the mer de glace 

 theory. True, Mr. Peach has been so obliging as to grant a letter 

 stating that he has now changed his opinion as to the direction of 

 the drift in Unst, in consequence of having since seen and thougJit 

 more of the glaciation of Scotland. His opinion he was at liberty to 

 change. His published record of facts he cannot, and I am sure 

 will not change ; and it is one of these facts that, when he ascended 

 Heog Hill, he found " the W.N.W. end vertical and polished to the 

 depth of at least 500 feet ;" and which W.N.W. end, he afterwards 

 describes as "the storm side of the hill," which had ''• evidently 

 resisted a portion of the destroyer, and turned the gi'eater part of, on 

 its western flank." 



These are facts about which a man of Mr. Peach's experience, in- 

 telligence, and scrupulous accuracy, could not be mistaken ; and these 

 facts are also entirely in discordance with the Scandinavian theory, 

 and the statements of Messrs. Peach and Home. 



(4). I hope these gentlemen will forgive me for saying, that I am 

 amused at their " adducing the testimony of Mr. Milne Home regard- 

 ing Norwegian boulders in Shetland," — implying that I had attested 

 the presence of such boulders there. Messrs. JPeach and Home, on 

 referring to the Eeport of the Edinburgh Eoyal Society Boulder 

 Committee, must no doubt have perceived, that the schoolmaster who 

 wrote to the Committee about boulders in Bressay, merely mentioned 

 that "they were conjectured to have come fi'om Norway." Messrs. 

 Peach and Plorne must have felt rather hard up for support to their 

 theory, when they adduce a conjecture by some unknown Shetlander, 

 as " the testimony of Mr. Milne Home." 



2. Having now adverted to the evidence which boulders afford of 

 " the (alleged) movement of an ice-sheet across the islands from the 

 North Sea to the Atlantic" (p. 790), I next notice the help sought 

 to be obtained from roclc striations. 



(1). In my original paper, I stated that I placed little value on 

 striae, unless they themselves indicated the direction in which the 

 striating agent had moved. Thus, in reference to N.W. and S.E. 



