COAST-ICE ON AN OSCILLATING AREA. 931 



mathematical considerations of their flotation, incapable of producing 

 any great effect in grinding the shoals on which they may occa- 

 sionally ground. 



Many of the phenomena presented by our northern countries and 

 attributed to ice-action are readily explained by the supposition of 

 coast-ice acting on a rising area, but only with difficulty when 

 either glaciers or ice-sheets are supposed to have been the grinding 

 agents. In such cases, all that I ask is that coast-ice may have its 

 due. 



Cosmical changes, or even changes in the geograplry of land and 

 sea, I think have been sufficient to bring coast-ice as far south as 

 any of the low-lying regions which exhibit traces of ice-action. 

 These changes may also on the higher ground have given rise to 

 glaciers which ground out lake-basins and moulded valleys ; but 

 that these changes produced large ice-caps, filling oceans and 

 covering countries, I do not see that we are justified in supposing 

 until there is a greater convergence of such evidence as can be 

 brought to bear upon the subject. 



If we take a map of Northern Europe on which are indicated the 

 general direction of ice-markings, any inference which can be drawn 

 from such directions, which all point more or less at right angles to 

 the sea-coast, is as favourable to the view that they were produced 

 by coast-ice acting on a rising area as it is to the fact that they 

 point out the direction in which the great ice-sheets travelled. 



In conclusion, I will say that one thing appears to me certain — > 

 namely, that, even if we accept the most favourable views of large 

 ice-caps, the appearances presented by many countries, which have 

 hitherto been ascribed to their action, ought rather, for reasons 

 already stated, to have been accredited to the action of coast-ice on 

 a rising area. 



(For the Discussion on this paper, see p. 861.) 



