﻿294 Frof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 



great natural revolution in the distribution of land and water, all of 

 which would involve difficulties and controversy in tlieir explanation. 

 How this universal sheet of ice obtained, and afterwards deposited, 

 its boulders, might next be questioned. Some would call in a sea 

 of icebergs to soh'e the problem, and might even go so far as to 

 consider them sufficient to explain the whole of the phenomena in 

 question. Following this latter supposition we are again quickly in 

 the midst of difficulties, passing from question to question whilst 

 endeavouring to affirm or refute a suggestion tbat is little better 

 than proofless. 



Icebergs and their parents, the glaciers, have done and are still 

 doing much towards the formation of the physical outlines of our 

 planet ; but yet I think their less imposing but more active and more 

 extensive associate, coast ice, ought at least to take an equal place 

 as a scatterer and modeller of rocks. 



In Finland, in Labrador, and in Newfoundland, I have seen the 

 work it has commenced on, that which it has partially finished, and 

 that which, I hold, it has completed. There is the sunken rock 

 barely to be seen at low water, just being rounded : there is the rock 

 standing up above high-water, whitened, smoothed and rounded, by 

 the annual coat of ice, which by winds and tides is forced across its 

 back ; and, lastly, there is the large island and the mainland all 

 showing a continuous and unbroken contour from their shores 

 annually invaded by the ice, and those parts which are now removed 

 high above its action, Epon the south coast of Finland one is in a 

 workshop where one sees a workman busy with his tools. Part of 

 his work is only commenced, part is almost completed, whilst the 

 remainder is finished and laid aside. Amongst all these specimens 

 of work there is a resemblance, and it is hardly fair to imagine that 

 one part should have been made in a manner different to another. 



Let the whole of the Finnish archipelago continue slowly rising- 

 above the level of the sea as it now appears to be doing, I think 

 that in time to come there will be produced a low undulating ice- 

 scratched boulder-covered country, very much resembling the one 

 we see upon the adjoining mainland. 



One striking instance of the formation of a miniature mainland I 

 noticed shortly after leaving Abo, when we passed a low island about 

 60 to 100 yards in length. At each extremity of the island there 

 was a round ice-scratched knoll. These two knolls were joined by 

 two narrow ridges, between which, there was a hollow, over into 

 which the sea had washed to form a pool. The history of this little 

 formation seemed to me similar to that of many larger areas. 



The first stage was when the two knolls had been represented by 

 two sunken rocks, over which the waves might have been seen 

 heaving and swelling as they passed across their surface. Thus far 

 their existence was only recognized by the disturbance they created. 

 However, the nuclei of a little continent was formed, and its surface 

 was annually swept by ice. The next stage was when the knolls 

 appeared as two separate rocks above the surface of the water, the 

 intervening ridge being still hidden ; a position analogous to the 



