ey: 
ray. 
Geological Notes. 391 
It may be added that Upham accepts the recency of the 
glacial period, and its causation by changes of ocean cur- 
rents, which of course would imply that its date coincided 
in Europe and America, though not necessarily or probably 
in the Southern Hemisphere. In the concluding para- 
graphs he attaches too much importance to the alleged oc- 
currence of implements in the later portion of the glacial 
detritus. These finds belong in most cases, if not always, 
to the Post-glacial. 
4.—Hrosion by Glaciers. 
Prof, Bonney, F.R.S., in a paper read before the Royal 
Geographical Society,' discusses this question in detail and 
arrives at the same conclusion which I stated in 1866, after 
visiting the Savoy Alps; viz, that glaciers are “agents of 
abrasion rather than erosion,” and that in the latter their 
power is much inferior to that of fluviatile action. Nor are 
glaciers agents in the excavation of lake basins, which are 
to be accounted for in other ways; and the great gorges 
and fiords which have been ascribed to them are due to 
aqueous erosion when the continents were at a high level, 
before the glacial age. 
5.—* Paleolithic’? Man in America. 
Every reader of the scientific journals of the United 
States must be aware of the numerous finds of “‘palzeolithic” 
implements in “glacial” gravels. I have endeavored to 
show in a work published several years ago,” how much 
doubt attaches to the reports of these discoveries, and how 
much such of the “ paleoliths” as appear to be the work 
of man resemble the rougher tools and rejectamenta of the 
modern Indians. But since the publication of that work, 
so great a number of “finds” have been recorded, that 
despite their individual improbability, one was almost over- 
whelmed by the coincidence of so many witnesses. Now, 
however, the bubble seems to have been effectually pricked 
1 Nature, March 30, 1893. 
2 ** Fossil Men,’ Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1880. 
