3 74 Old British and 



conclusion that large parts of the northern hemisphere 

 were, during the ' glacial period,' more or less covered, 

 or nearly covered, with a coating of thick ice, in the 

 same way that the greater parts of Greenland, Spitz- 

 bergen, and the whole of Victoria Land are covered at 

 present. Britain formed part of this area, and, by the 

 long-continued grinding power of great glaciers nearly 

 universal over the northern half of our country and 

 Wales, the whole surface became moulded by ice. The 

 relics of this action still remain strongly impressed on 

 this country to attest its former power, and I need 

 scarcely say that the same kind of phenomena are 

 equally striking in Ireland. 



It might be unsafe to form this conclusion merely 

 by an examination of such a small tract of country as 

 the British Islands, but when we consider the great 

 Scandinavian chain, and the northern half of Europe 

 generally, we find that similar phenomena are common 

 over the whole of that area, and in the North American 

 Continent, as far south as latitude 38 or 40 ; for when 

 the soil, or the superficial covering of other debris 

 is removed, we discover over large areas that the solid 

 rock is smoothed and polished, and covered with grooves 

 and striations % similar to those of which we have ex- 

 perience among the glaciers of the Alps. I do not 

 speak merely by common report in this matter, for I 

 know it from personal observation, both in the Old 

 Continent and the New. We know of no power on 

 earth, of a natural kind, which produces these indica- 

 tions except moving ice, and therefore geologists are 

 justified in attributing them, even on this great con- 

 tinental scale, to ice-action. 



This conclusion is fortified by many other circum- 

 stances. Thus, I have stated that in the Alps there is 



