S. H. Howorth — A Gnat Pod- Glacial Flood. 77 



difficult to see whence they could obtain the necessary ingredients. 

 Clay would not be acted on by wind ; sand of itself would not suffice 

 to form the peculiar mixture of ingredients ; limestone cannot be dis- 

 integrated by the atmosphere so as to be reduced to dust capable of 

 being transported in the manner suggested. The means are quite 

 inadequate to the end (Kingsmill, op. cit. p. 381). We have therefore 

 to look elsewhere. 



How would the postulate of a deluge on a large scale enable us 

 to clear up the difficulties in the distribution of the Loess ? If it 

 would explain them all, are we not driven to accept it ? Let 

 us see then how the case stands. Such a flood of waters rushing 

 over a district in which the Loess was being poured out would 

 in fact take it up as it sped along and distribute it independently 

 of the drainage over plateaux and valleys in a continuous mantle 

 or sheet. It would in the second place pile it up in drifts 

 wherever the water met with resistance or ceased to flow rapidly, 

 thus accounting for the immense deposits which occur in special 

 localities, as in the Loess near Wurzburg, described by Mr. Belt, 

 of which he expressly says : " It has been principally preserved, 

 from the effects of great floods that appear to have swept down 

 the valleys, in bays and recesses, and at these points bones of 

 the Mammoth and its associates have been found." In the third 

 place it would account for the Loess being of a homogeneous character 

 independently of the subjacent strata — a fact which has been men- 

 tioned by Pere David in China, and would account also for its being 

 distributed so often over beds of gravel in Germany, where we 

 cannot suppose it was the result of the denudation of the surface 

 immediately below. In the fourth place, it would account for the 

 absence of stratification in the Loess, for stratification is due to a 

 deposit being made in successive layers by a series of depositions ; 

 while, in this case, it would be deposited in one continuous mass. 

 Fifthly, it would account for the Loess occurring in the heads of 

 the tributary valleys of the big continental rivers and in those 

 running up into the Carpathians, where it is found choking the 

 heads of the valleys and ravines as if thrust up into them by an im- 

 pelling force from behind. Sixthly, it would account for the greater 

 part of the heavier materials, such as bones, etc., the wave of water 

 and mud met with on its progress, being left in the valleys, while 

 the lighter, such as the shells, were carried along to the upper ground ; 

 it being a well-known characteristic of the Loess, as of the contem- 

 porary diluvium of the French writers, that when it occurs on the 

 plateaux, it is almost free from animal remains, etc. Dr. Hibbert- 

 Ware, whose main theory of the origin of the Loess I cannot accept, 

 shows very clearly that it has been subject to very considerable 

 redistribution. Take the following example, for instance. Speaking 

 of the Loess near Strassburg, he says : " The lowest beds of some 

 small hills, or knolls of transported Loess which had been deposited, 

 appear to have included the heavier particles, consisting of sand, in 

 which appear rolled pebbles distributed in the form of veins. In 

 a higher bed, the sand which has thus subsided is varied by the 



