144 M R - H. H. Howorth on 



The Author of the Glacial Theory. By Henry H. 

 Howorth, M.P., F.S.A. 



{Received December joth, 1889.) 



At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, 

 I ventured in a paper, in which I criticised the extreme 

 Glacial views of Agassiz and his scholars, to speak with 

 some plainness and severity of the way in which the 

 Genevan Professor had appropriated to himself the honour 

 of originating the Glacial Theory, which belonged to another 

 man. For this I was taken to task by Professor Green, who 

 in a homiletic address on the impropriety of unveiling this 

 kind of scientific piracy, unless there was ample evidence to 

 substantiate the charge, seemed unaware of what had been 

 published in Germany and America on the subject. 



From the way his remarks were received I gather that 

 there were others in the same state of mind, and, as the 

 question has not been ventilated in England, I venture to 

 bring it before the Society. It is of interest not merely as 

 throwing light on the genesis of a very important and popu- 

 lar hypothesis, but as illustrating, by a critical example, the 

 pernicious habit of appropriating other men's work, which I 

 hold it to be our especial duty to denounce, when it is done by 

 big men who fill a large place in the eyes of the unscientific 

 crowd. 



There have been four generally recognised theories to 

 account for the drift phenomena, namely : — (i), the diluvial 

 theory which was largely originated by De Saussure ; (2), the 

 iceberg theory, which, so far as I know, was originated by 

 Wrede ; (3), the glacial theory, which was, if not originated, 

 developed and proved by Charpentier ; and, lastly, the ice 

 sheet theory in its various forms, which is attributed in nearly 



