ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 203 



theory had they visited that region and been even moderately ac- 

 quainted with the facts above stated, and others which as indis- 

 putably prove a submarine origin. But there is every reason to 

 conclude that glaciers in high lands in Scandinavia, Finland and 

 Lapland, in very remote times, had much to do with the origin of 

 the. erratic blocks, in separating them from their parent rocks and 

 transporting them to the coast. Sir R. Murchison informs us that 

 he was assured by Dr. Worth, a distinguished mineralogist of St. 

 Petersburg, that after a careful examination of the numerous blocks 

 scattered around that capital, there was not among them a single 

 example which could not be paralleled with its parent rock in Fin- 

 land. Speaking of the observations of himself and his companicmsj 

 he states that near Jurievitz on the Volga, they found erratic blocks 

 of a quartz rock associated with others of a trap breccia peculiar to 

 the north-western side of Lake Onega, affording clear evidence that 

 they had been transported in a south-eastern direction, 500 miles 

 from their parent rocks. 



If the blocks were encased in and transported by icebergs, they 

 would be accumulated chiefly on the ridges and higher parts of the 

 sea-bottom, by which the progress of the icebergs would be arrested, 

 and where the icebergs would be fixed until they gradually melted, 

 leaving their stony cargo on the spot. Such we find to be the fact. 

 The great accumulations of the blocks are not in the valleys, but on 

 the high grounds. The summits of the cliffs on the south shores of 

 the Gulf of Finland, at an elevation of 150 feet above the sea, are 

 covered with angular blocks of the granite, gneiss and porphyry of 

 Finland ; they are found on the hills adjoining Lake Onega, at ele- 

 vations from 400 to 600 feet above the lake ; the Valdai Hills, which 

 are in some places 1000 feet above the level of the Baltic, have 

 arrested large quantities of blocks from Finland, which are pro- 

 fusely spread over their southern slopes. In the sandy plains east 

 of Posen, not a block is to be seen for several miles, until the ele- 

 vations towards the Polish frontier are reached, and they again be- 

 come numerous. In the sandy plain the blocks are usually small, 

 but on the hills between Konin and Kolo, vast numbers of large 

 blocks are buried in and mixed with sand at heights of 300 or 400 

 feet above the sea. 



A very important circumstance in the history of these erratic 

 blocks is pointed out by the authors of the ' Geology of Russia,' viz. 

 that they have not travelled from north to south only, but in all di- 

 rections from certain centres in Scandinavia and Lapland. In Den- 

 mark they have come from north by cast ; in most parts of Prussia 

 almost direct from north ; opposite the coasts of Finnish Lapland, 

 where the granitic and other crystalline boundary swoo[)s round to 

 the north-east, the direction of the blocks changes accordingly. 

 Near Nijni Novgorod they must have travelled from north-west to 

 south-east; and in the Government of Vologda they have nearly an 

 eastern course. By the observations of Bohtlingk we learn that the 

 erratic blocks of Scandinavia have been shed off from the coast of 

 Kemi into the bay of Onega, and from Russian Lapland into the 



