1862.] RAMSAY GLACIAL ORIGIJf OF LAKES. 203 



Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, probably, like the greater lakes 

 of Switzerland, are of the same kind, being merely large cases of 

 glacier-erosion, though in the case of the former it may be that the 

 alluTial deposits on the banks of the Leven prevent its being in- 

 vaded by the tide. Its islands are mere roches moutonnees *. 



In the lowlands of Scotland numerous examples of the same kind 

 of rock-basms occur, some of them certain, others doubtful because 

 of the surrounding drift, which indeed in some cases may be the sole 

 cause of the retention of the water. Notable examples of both kinds 

 occur in the lowlands of Pife and Kinross, and of true rock-basins 

 in the Cleish and Ochil Hills, as for instance Loch Glow, Dow Loch, 

 and the two Black Lochs, and more doubtfully Loch Lindores. 



I have not yet had an opportunity of visiting the Scandinavian 

 peninsula, which, geologists are aware, is, through all its length 

 and breadth, one of the most wonderfully glaciated countries in the 

 world. On the west, descending from the great chain, striated 

 roches moutonnees plunge right under the deep fiords ; and on the 

 east, in Sweden, all between the mountains and the Baltic, round 

 the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and up to the North Sea, the whole 

 country is covered with a prodigious number of lakes, just like North 

 America, the Lewes, and the North Highlands of Scotland. The 

 intense glaciation which all of these countries have undergone, their 

 similarity, and what I believe to be the intimate connexion of such 

 crowded lakes with the movement of ice, induce me to believe that 

 in Sweden also a great number of the lake-hollows must be true 

 rock-basins scooped out by the passage of glacier-ice into the Baltic 

 area. Furthermore, as the glaciated sides and bottoms of the 

 Norwegian fiords and of the saltwater lochs of Scotland seem to 

 prove, each of these arms of the sea is merely the prolongation of a 

 valley down which a glacier flowed, and was itself filled with a 

 glacier ; for the whole country was evidently, like the north of Green- 

 land, moulded by ice. In parts of Scotland, some of these lochs being 

 deeper in places than the neighbouring open sea, I incline to attribute 

 this depth to the grinding power of the ice that of old flowed down 

 the valleys, when possibly the land may have been higher than at 

 present t. It may, however, only arise from unequal deposition of 

 detritus. If the former view be admitted, raise the land so as to lay 

 bare the surrounding ocean-bottom, and in some respects of levels 

 and depth they become approximately the counterparts of the deeper 

 narrow lakes of Switzerland and North Italy, glaciers bounded by 

 mountains having flowed through both, and debouched upon the plains 

 beyond. 



The Glacial Theory. — Furthermore, considering the vast areas over 

 which the phenomena described are common in North America and 

 Europe, I believe that this theory of the origin of lake-rock-basins 



* When the lake was low, I have seen in Loch Lomond ice-striated sur- 

 aces of rock just above the water, the striations running in the direction of 

 the length of the lake. 



t But this is not essential, unless the lochs are so deep that the ice must have 

 been floated up before reaching the deeper parts. 



