208 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



sell calls a wave of the first order, or " the wave of translation," 

 and to the application of Mr. Russell's researches and theory by Mr. 

 Hopkins, in his paper " On the Elevation and Denudation of the 

 district of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland*," considers 

 that all the phajnomenaof the boulder formation and drift of North- 

 ern Europe (not including the erratic blocks) may be accounted 

 for by the action of such waves. But a sudden paroxysmal move- 

 ment of the bed of the sea is a necessary condition for the produc- 

 tion of a wave of translation. Mr. Hopkins says, " If the elevation 

 were sufficiently gradual, no sensible wave would result from it ; 

 but if it were sudden, the surface of the water above the uplifted 

 area would be elevated very nearly as much as the area itself, and 

 a diverging wave would be the consequence ;" and that " there is 

 no difficulty in accounting for a current of twenty-five or thirty 

 miles an hour, if we allow of paroxysmal elevations of from 100 to 

 200 feet ;" and he adds, that " if the extent of country be consider- 

 able, the elevation might occupy several minutes, and still produce 

 the great wave above described." It is to be observed that the wave 

 would be diverging, and therefore the currents would not be limited 

 to one direction. But however great the power of transport of the 

 sudden wave might be, its action would be transient, and we must 

 therefore suppose, either that the whole phaenomena were produced 

 by one sudden elevation, or that there was a succession of paroxysms. 

 Whether such sudden violent transport, such tumultuous hurrying- 

 along of the blocks, gravel and sand, be consistent with the forms 

 and arrangements of the detrital matter, the long "trainees," "the 

 widely spread and finely laminated sands," and the included fragile 

 shells, can only be determined by special observations directed to 

 such an inquiry. It does not appear at all consistent with the for- 

 mation of the detritus of local origin, that which constitutes so great 

 a part of the boulder formation over the whole northern region, 

 and which seems to indicate a long-continued action over the same 

 ground. We ought, besides, to have some independent evidence of 

 paroxysmal action in the same region ; whereas there is the strongest 

 proof of gradual upheavals : take, for example, the whole continent 

 of European Russia, which exhibits scarcely any disruption, and 

 which. Sir R. Murchison is of opinion, was elevated en masse. 



But we must go further back in our inquiry ; before the wave of 

 translation was generated. Whence the detrital matter which the 

 wave transported ? Are we to suppose that the same paroxysmal 

 movement broke up and shattered to fragments the bottom of the 

 sea, and that it was these fragments which the transient wave trans- 

 ported and rounded into boulders ? Or is it more reasonable to sup- 

 pose, that the materials of the detritus must have been derived from 

 pre-existent land, the rocks of which were broken by glacial and 

 atmospheric action, as rocks now are, to be afterwards rolled, 

 rounded and polished by currents of water; as they unquestionably 

 must have been, however the currents may have been produced ? 



* Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. p. 757. 



