114 Canadian Record of Science. 



for example, to the Cordilleran centre in British Columbia, our 

 author writes : 



" The conditions were combined of a high mountain chain with 

 the Pacific on the west, and the then submerged area of the great 

 plains on the east, affording next to Greenland the grandest gather- 

 ing-ground for snow and ice that the northern hemisphere has 

 seen." 



Of recent years it has been far too generally assumed that we 

 have to picture the glaciers of the ice-age moving across the features 

 of the country as we at present know them. The views of Prof. 

 Suess with regard to earth-movements in the historic period are 

 perhaps only fair criticism of somewhat hasty observations; but, 

 in face of the extraordinary evidence of post-Pliocene upheavals, it 

 is at least irrational to believe that these terminated with man's 

 appearance on the globe. Many English " glacialists " accept a 

 recent submergence of their country to a depth of 500 feet, and yet 

 postulate the most catastrophic occurrences to account for marine 

 beds at twice that height above the sea. Yet we now have, in 

 addition to the old Lyellian instances, such as the Astian or even 

 later beds in Sicily, which are elevated some .3,000 feet, evidence 

 given us by Prof. Andrew Lawson of a post-Pliocene uplift of the 

 continental coast of California to heights of from 800 to 1,500 feet; 

 and Sir W. Dawson's requirements to explain the distribution of 

 the Canadian drift are such as will seem moderate and natural to 

 every rational uniformitarian. 



On page 111 of the present work, the author discusses the pos- 

 sibility of distinguishing striations produced by the " huge ice- 

 islands " in shallow seas from the deeper and firmer markings of 

 true glacier-ice. Granted the submergence, which in itself assists 

 in the formation of snow and ice, the phenomena of the distribution 

 of boulders receive at once their simplest explanation ; and in 

 chapter v. the local details of the drifts are taken, area by area, 

 into consideration. Our own British islands must similarly be 

 discussed area by area. Because it seems probable that Scotland 

 in the glacial epoch was a local Greenland, there is no reason why 

 England should also have been lifted above the sea. The evidence 

 accumulating in Ireland goes far in favour of long submergence of 

 that country, with the production of an archipelago of picturesque 

 and snow-capped islands. Hence it is that we may welcome Sir 

 W. Dawson's summary of results in Canada as a reminder that 

 land-ice and enormous terminal moraines are not to be left in 

 undisputed possession of the fiel^L We can even sympathize with 

 him in his final sense of irritation, when he charges some glacial- 

 ists with " misunderstanding or misrepresenting the glacial work 



