Cole — Glacial Features in Sjyilshergcn. 199 



different from those that one would natiu-ally associate with the waning of the 

 Irish Ice-Age. Yet it is curious to reflect that the departure of our Ice- Age 

 may also have occurred in a time of comparative aridity. We are aware that the 

 uplift of north-western Europe generally, which ultimately allowed of the 

 general growth of peat over regions now again submerged, brought continental 

 conditions into lands at present modified by the proximity of the Xorth and 

 Baltic Seas. A high-pressure area maintained over the aSTorth Sea region and 

 Priesland during winter would check the inflow of moisture-laden winds, 

 ilonsoon conditions on a mild scale ^vould prevail, with rainfall over the British 

 Isles Hmited mainly to the summer months, when the south-west winds would 

 be admitted. This rainfall would maintain sufficient snow in the interior of 

 Ireland to prevent the very rapid retreat of the glaciers from the lowlands, 

 while the ice might have akeady vanished from the drier countries farther 

 east. The total rainfall in Ireland might actually have been less than 

 now, the peat being nurtured by the abundant waters soaking from glacier- 

 margins into the extended tundra-land. This suggestion is merely put forward 

 to show how difficult it is to reason as to meteorological conditions from the 

 presence of extensive ice-masses or of a particular flora. It must be admitted 

 that in the dry European epoch preceding the formation of the Ancylus-sea in 

 the Baltic area, the climate of Ireland, if drier than now, must have remained 

 oceanic in character when compared with that of Northern Germany (see 

 also p. 207). 



The dissection of the plateau-edges of Spitsbergen enables us to realize 

 the dissection of the old plateau around KQlary Harbour, where cHff-waUs 

 and cirques, now partly grass-grown and invaded by taluses, play so large 

 a part in the features of the landscape. The cirque-walls remain still 

 fresher in the Killarney region, and in the noble examples in the Comeragh 

 Mountains in Co. Waterford. Such sculpturing may be referred to a late stage 

 in our glacial epoch, extending in Ireland probably into times of human 

 occupation. The immense part played by frost in the excavation of cirques in 

 itself presupposes sun and warmth sufficient to melt the snow upon the 

 mountain-domes and plateau-edges, and to allow of the penetration of water 

 into the joint-planes of the rock. 



It is interesting to remark that as far back as 1849 — a very early date in 

 the discussion of glacial phenomena in om" islands — John Ball,' the explorer 

 of the Atlas Mountains, read a paper before the Geological Society of Dublin, 

 in which he observed that glaciers had occupied certain hollows in the Dingle 

 Promontory and near Eollarney. He concluded that these hollows had 



' "Small Glaciers in Keny,'" Journ. Geol. Soc. Dublin, vol. iv (1849), p. 15i. 

 K.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXIX., SECT. B. [2 E] 



