Vol. 55.] CHALK AND DRIFT IN" MOEN AND EtJGEN. 32«5 



may have occurred ; but as post-Glacial movements on a large scale 

 are not generally admitted by geologists, very clear evidence may 

 reasonably be demanded. That we were unable to find. The Chalk 

 obviously has been greatly folded, but this, as we have shown above, 

 took place before the Glacial Period ; faults also may occasionally 

 be detected, but these as a rule are not conspicuous and seemingly 

 not large, being more of the nature of fractures and slips due to that 

 folding. We sometimes had the opportunity of examining from the 

 beach a continuous wall of Chalk beneath one of the apparently 

 infolded or infaulted masses of Drift, and we were unable to detect 

 in it the slightest sign of rupture or displacement. The flexures 

 shown by the bands of nodular flints are sometimes as steep and 

 even more remarkable than those exhibited in the clifts near the 

 jS'eedles ; but they were formed, so far as we could discover, long 

 enough before the Great Ice Age to allow time for the region 

 to be sculptured into something like its present contours. We 

 therefore think that the evidence which we have cited, both for 

 Mden and for Riigen, cannot be reconciled with Puggaard's hypo- 

 thesis, and we have been compelled, though at first a little prejudiced 

 in its favour, to reject it, no less than that of folding, as irrecon- 

 cilable with the facts. 



But, as we are unable to accept any of the hypotheses which at 

 present apparently occupy the field, we may be asked to show that 

 some other one is possible. It must explain the following facts : — 



(1) The tripartite ^ and generally orderly arrangement of the 



Drift. 



(2) The rather frequent and sometimes marked unconformity 



between the Drift and the Chalk. 



(3) The occurrence, not seldom, of the former in either valleys 



or clefts of the latter. 



(4) The great variation in the angle at which these beds of 



clay and sand are inclined (from almost horizontal to 

 almost vertical) without losing their general evenness of 

 bedding.^ 



Let us suppose, then, that by the beginning of the Glacial epoch 

 the surface of Moen and Eiigen had assumed nearly its present 

 outlines. As the temperature falls, snow begins to clothe the 

 slopes ; as the cold increases, it becomes permanent. On the hill- 

 tops the snow wiU be comparatively thin, but it thickens on their 

 slopes and accumulates in the valleys until these are nearly or quite 

 filled. Glaciers, however, owing to the smallness of the gathering- 

 ground, probably will not be formed.^ The lines of downs in each 

 island become hardly more than undulating plateaux of snow. 



^ At any rate, in Evigen ; throughout we are referring only to the Drift 

 (Lower Diluvium) intercalated with the Chalk. 



^ This suggests that, whatever be the explanation, the beds, when moved, were 

 probably more coherent than they are now, or, in other words, were frozen 

 solid. 



^ As we can see at the edge of regions covered with almost continental ice at 

 the present day, small insular tracts merely have a covering of frozen snow. 



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