310 E. H. Eoworth—A Great Tod-Glacial Flood. 



many cases really hiding our want of a good reason behind a pseudo- 

 scientific instead of a theological deus ex machina, which imposes 

 just as great a feeling of awe, nay almost of consternation, upon the 

 crowd as the older and now discredited appeal. Assuredly, it is a 

 foolish thing to shrink from any postulate, however vast, when it is 

 the only one that explains the facts ; but just as certainly is it the best 

 course in such discussions as these to invoke the simplest, and to dis- 

 card the most complicated machinery for doing any work which we 

 have to explain. Take the present case. "We are to believe that 

 rivers which at the present moment, except at certain critical points, 

 are not excavating their channels, but are actually raising them by 

 the deposition of material along their courses, have, when they flowed 

 much higher than at present, and when therefoi'e their currents were 

 much slower and less destructive, swept out and scoured enormous 

 valleys once filled up to several hundred feet with loams and gravels, 

 etc., which same loams and gravels were, according to the same 

 authors, deposited in these very valleys by the same rivers. How is 

 the mechanical problem to be solved at all in this fashion? 



Again, where has all the material gone ? "Where are the deltas at 

 the mouth of the Somme and the Seine whose gigantic size would at 

 once explain where all this material has disappeared to? Assuredly 

 these are very proper questions to put, but they are not all. In the 

 midst of the Rhine valley, near Freiburg, is the well-known volcanic 

 pyramid called the Kaizerstuhl, which is covered with Loess. How 

 came this there? how is it that it was not swept away (for it is 

 largely composed of pumice and ashes), when the river was carving 

 out the Rhine valley ? and even if its volcanic nucleus was able to 

 resist the water, how comes it that the soft mantle of Loess enveloping 

 its flanks was not torn off? for it will be noted that such an obstacle 

 as this mountain, standing in the midst of the river, would offer a 

 tremendous buttress to its waters and be swept clean of all loose 

 materials. What is true of the Kaizerstuhl is true of other old 

 volcanos in this district, of which Mr. Belt pertinently says : — "The 

 most ardent advocate of the theory that the Loess has been left by 

 the river while it ran at higher levels will not, I think, suggest that 

 the volcanic cones have been carved out by it, and yet excepting on 

 that supposition their theory falls to the ground" (op. cit. p. 80). 



Again, as a matter of mere mechanics, the question presents a 

 series of difficulties. If the valleys were filled up to the height 

 of the uj)per terraces with loam, gravel, etc., and the river, flowing 

 on the top of this, occupied the whole breadth of the valley, and 

 was, consequently, much more full of water than at present, whence 

 did the supply of water come ? what are the meteorological condi- 

 tions which would induce such a flow from such a restricted water- 

 shed ? It is said that the upper parts of the valleys were then filled 

 with glaciers, and that ice was very abundant, and was in fact a 

 great agent in twisting the beds of soft deposit and in moving the 

 large stones which occur in these beds. "With such conditions, how 

 were the Ficus carica and the Hippopotamus, etc., to live ? But 

 granting the existence of such glaciers, they would not suffice to 



