18(30.] JAMIESON DKIFT, ABERDEENSHIRE. 369 



inexplicable by floating ice, but perfectly accordant with glacier- 

 action. Again, there are localities where the blocks have been carried 

 northwards, as was shown by Sir B. Griffith with regard to those 

 proceeding from the Ox Mountains in Ireland (Brit. Assoc. Report, 

 1843, Sect., p. 41), — a circumstance opposed to the idea of a south- 

 ward-drifting marine current. And in districts where the marine 

 drift is charged with remains of Arctic Mollusca, it wovdd appear that 

 there is very often a considerable thickness of unstratified boulder- 

 earth beneath it, which is quite destitute of the slightest trace of 

 marine fossils, but studded thick with striated boulders and pebbles, 

 like the matter of a moraine. 



The many instances I have adduced of high-lying scarified drift 

 and transported boulders at elevations exceeding 2000 feet, indicate 

 an almost total submersion of the country ; and the observations of 

 geologists in many other parts of Britain tend to the same conclusion. 



The late Mr. Trimmer, who had paid much attention to the English 

 Pleistocene, inferred from his many observations that almost all 

 England had been covered (Journal of Gcol. Soc. vii. p. 26) ; while 

 the researches of Professor Ramsay in "Wales point to a similar result 

 for that region (ibid. viii. p. 372). Mr. Darwin, likewise, reasoning 

 from the presence of a large syenitic boulder on the top of Ashley 

 Heath in Staffordshire, and from other facts, decided that the whole 

 of that region was, at the period of floating ice, deeply submerged 

 ( Ed. New Phil. Journ. xxxiii. p. 352). Professor Phillips, in like 

 manner, finds proof that every part of Yorkshire below the level of 

 1500 feet was covered by the waters of the same glacial sea (Brit. 

 Assoc. Report, 1853, Sect., p. 54). And I might go en to quote the 

 many instances of high-lying boulders in the south of Scotland ad- 

 duced by Maclaren, Chambers, JSTicol, and others : while in the west 

 the same occurs ; for Mr. Darwin, in his account of the Parallel Roads 

 of Glen Roy (Phil. Trans. 1839), mentions having observed boidders 

 of granite on Ben Erin up to an altitude of 2200 feet. And I may 

 here mention, generally, that in the Highlands of Perthshire and 

 Aberdeenshire I found the presence of far-travelled boulders at 

 heights exceeding 2000 feet by no means uncommon, — that, indeed, it 

 m;is rare to find any extensive ridge without them. The above 

 slmws that this great submergence was not local, but general over 

 Great Britain. 



§ (>. There are only some dozen or so of hills in England, Wales, 

 and Inland that rise above 3000 feet; and the highest of them all. 

 Snowdon, falls short of Hen Uarn More, where 1 noticed the trans- 

 ported fragments of porphyry. Without, however, meaning to lay 

 much stress on such Isolated cases, I think the tendency of the 

 evidence points to an extent of submergence during the drift-period 

 thai must have quite extinguished all the larger Mammalia \ and, as 

 no upper limit has yel been established, perhaps it may have been 

 so complete as to annihilate all terrestrial life in these islands. 



In the central Highlands of Braemar the higher mountains arc 

 generally remarkable for tremendous precipices on their sides, most 

 frequently on their eastern Hanks. Borne of these stupendous cliffs 



