402 T. F. Jamieson — Oscillalion of Land in Glacial Period. 



and 1350 feet, but no evidence of submergence to anything like 

 this extent has been detected on the eastern side of England or in 

 the neighbouring parts of Europe. In Canada the marine shell beds 

 reach up to 470 feet at Montreal, but, says Mr. Thos. Belt,i " going 

 eastward from Montreal the elevation of the marine beds, marking 

 the former submergence of the land, gradually decreases until in 

 Nova Scotia it reaches zero." Dana, in the 2nd edition of his Manual 

 of Geology, tells us that the altitude of the marine deposits on the 

 southern shores of New England is 40 or 50 feet, at Lake Champ- 

 lain (which is in the same lat. as Nova Scotia) they occur up to 

 393 feet. It would therefore appear that on the Eastern coast of 

 North America the submergence, like the glaciation, extended 

 farther South than it did in " Europe. This is quite intelligible if 

 there was a depression of land caused by the glacier, but is unac- 

 countable by a rise of the ocean. 



3rd. Again, according to Dr. Croll, the amount of submergence 

 should have diminished very very gradually as we trace it from north 

 to south. For example, he calculates that if the submergence was 

 485 feet at the North Pole, it would be 434 feet in the lat. of Edin- 

 burgh, or only 51 feet less. The evidence, however, does not agree 

 with this, for in Holland, Belgium, France, and the South of 

 England little or no submergence has been discovered, although a 

 large amount occurred a few hundred miles to the north of these 

 places. In Scandinavia the highest lying shell-beds are in the 

 southern half of the peninsula, where they attain an altitude of 500 

 or 600 feet, but in going northward from Trondhjeim they seem to 

 decrease in elevation, and in Finmark none have been discovered at 

 nearly so great a height. At Hammerfest, according to M. Bravais, 

 the highest of the old sea beaches is only 92 feet. This is incon- 

 sistent with Dr. Croll's theory, according to which the submergence 

 should have increased to the north instead of growing less, but it is 

 intelligible on the ice pressure hypothesis, as the amount of precipi- 

 tation is greatest along the south half of the Norwegian coast and 

 therefore the weight of ice would be heaviest in that quarter. 



Moreover, Bravais found that the old sea beaches in Finmark are 

 not horizontal. If this be correct, it is a good proof that the move- 

 ment has been due to a rise of the land, for had it been caused by a 

 fall of the ocean it is evident the old beaches should have been 

 horizontal. Bravais found his uppermost beach line decline in level 

 from 221 feet at its southern extremity in Altenfiord to 92 feet at its 

 northern end at Hammerfest, thus lowering in level from south to 

 north.- 



These objections to the theory of Dr. Croll induce me to think that 

 the cause assigned by him is not the true one, and that an explana- 

 tion must be sought in some other direction. I may further remark 

 that Dr. Croll's theory assumes that the glacial conditions were not 

 simultaneous in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But in the present 

 state of our knowledge it seems to me that we are not entitled to 



1 Trans, of Halifax Institute, 8th May, 1866. 



2 Quart. Journ. of the Geol, Soc. yoI. i. p. 541. 



