Modern Large Glaciers. 371 



in the seas of warmer climates, their stony freights, 

 when they have any, get scattered abroad here and 

 there over the bottom of the West Atlantic, which, 

 therefore, must be dotted with erratic blocks and other 

 debris borne from far northern regions. 



The same kind of phenomena, on a still grander 

 scale, are common in the Antarctic regions of Victoria 

 Land. There, between south latitude, 71 and 79, the 

 land, as described by Sir James Ross, rises in places to 

 10,000, and even 15,000 feet in height, and the whole 

 country may almost be said to be covered by a universal 

 sheet of glacier ice, whic"h, protruding far seaward, rises 

 in cliffs from 150 to 250 feet above the level of the sea. 

 Such a wall, east of Mount Erebus, extended in 1841 

 for a distance of about 600 miles, and from it and parts 

 of the coast great tabular bergs break off, occasionally 

 bearing blocks of volcanic rocks. Sir James estimated 

 the average thickness of the glacier ice to be not more 

 than 1,008 feet, but in many cases this is doubtless an 

 under-estimate. This Antarctic continent is probably 

 as large as or larger than Australia, and every yard of 

 its surface must be ground and polished by the nearly 

 universal glacier that radiates from its centre to the 

 sea. 



Having ascertained what are the signs by which a 

 glacier may be known, and also the signs left by ice- 

 bergs, I shall now show that a large part of the British 

 Islands has been subjected to glaciation, or the action 

 of glacier-ice. 



BB2 



