36 SURFACE GEOLOGY. 



They do not seem to correspond to the descriptions given by authors of Osars. 

 Yet M. Desor, who is familiar with such deposits in Scandinavia, describes them as 

 occurring around our western lakes ; and he refers to the gravelly ridges at An- 

 dover, Mass., as of the same kind. As to the latter, taking Sir R. Murchison's de- 

 scription of Osars (Russia, vol. i. p. 547) as a guide, I have doubted very much 

 whether they could be Osars, since they are too crooked, too narrow, and to long, 

 to be produced by a current sweeping past some obstruction, either a rock or an 

 iceberg. Seffstrom regarded the Osar as peculiar to Sweden, though probably 

 wrong in such a view. But I ought perhaps hardly to give an opinion adverse to 

 such authority on the subject. As remarked on another page, I have represented 

 Osars in four places in New Hampshire on Map No. 1, Plate III, viz., at the Pot-hole 

 Gorge in Union, near Fabyan's tavern, in the White Mountains, and a few miles 

 south of Conway, on the road to Centre Harbor, and just within the bounds of 

 the town of Eaton. These may be Osars, yet my doubts as to the fact are not all 

 cleared up. 



Along the northeast coast of Ireland the streams are little more than brooks, 

 yet the glens are numerous, and I looked into them with interest, expecting to see 

 perfect terraces. But they are infrequent and imperfect. So in the gently undu- 

 lating region from the Giant's Causeway, through Bally money and Bally men a to 

 Belfast, although rocks seldom appear in place, and a coarse detritus covers the 

 surface ; yet it does not assume the form of distinct beaches or terraces. They 

 doubtless exist, however, in other parts of the island ; and yet, although in the 

 able papers and volumes of Berger, Weaver, and Portlock, on the Geology of Ire- 

 land, I find decided evidence of ancient beaches, I have not met with any descrip- 

 tion of distinct terraces. 



Scotland. 



I entered Scotland by the way of the Frith of the Clyde, and soon noticed the 

 general resemblance of its banks to those of American rivers. A few miles below 

 Glasgow, two, and sometimes three, terraces were obvious from the steamboat. 

 They were of small elevation, however, not more, I judged, than 20 or 30 feet, 

 and there is no barrier between them and the ocean. Subsequently I passed 

 through the Highlands by the way of Loch Lomond and Glencoe, and thence 

 to the Parallel Boads of Glen Roy. On this route the surface geology bears a 

 strong resemblance to that of New England. At the foot of hills great quantities 

 of modified drift appear in the form of beaches, rather than of terraces. Some- 

 times, as in the valley near the lead mines of the Marquis of Breadalbane, the 

 coarse gravel is piled up in those irregular masses with deep depressions, which I 

 have called Moraine Terraces. These, both in Scotland and America, have been 

 regarded as the moraines of ancient glaciers. Once I was prepared to adopt this 

 opinion, but since I have seen undoubted moraines in the Alps, I feel compelled 

 to dissent from it. The fatal objection to such an opinion is, that the materials, 

 composing these supposed moraines, have been modified and in a measure sorted 

 by water — a condition never seen in genuine moraines, at least to any great 



