700 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL sociury. [June 22, 
(6.) By this time the country was much higher than now, and, 
the land being connected with the Continent, the bulk of the pre- 
sent flora and fauna crept into it from various quarters, though the 
alpine plants still kept possession of the higher mountain-regions 
during a great portion of this epoch. The red deer, the great Irish 
elk, great wild bull, the musk-ox, the brown bear, and the reindeer 
in all probability appeared about this time, though I am not alto- 
gether sure that some of them did not hold possession of the tops 
of the mountains even during the period of submergence. 
(e.) A depression now took place, and the estuarine beds or 
carses of the Scottish rivers were formed. Much of the fossiliferous 
boulder-clay formed as I have described it is now under the sea ; 
off the coast we continually dredge up remains of its fauna. Man 
had also by this time got into the country ; and it is possible that 
he was there during the former epoch, having travelled overland 
from the Continent at a period when the Thames was a tributary of 
the Rhine, and our other rivers had not settled down in their beds, 
though for long periods previous to this the general contour of our 
country was as it is Just now, only its boundaries were not settled. 
(¢.) The land after this seems to have risen, in all probability 
to its present level ; for we have no certain evidence that since the 
dawn of history there were any oscillations of level. These latter 
changes I have touched but slightly on, as they do not concern our 
subject so much as the former. 
Concrusion.—I have thus given what I honestly conceive to be a 
correct description of glaciation in Greenland, with logical deduc- 
tions regarding glaciation in Britain and, by context, in northern 
Europe. The paper resolves itself into two parts :—Ist, fact; 2nd, 
theory. Still our facts are too few to allow any theory to be more 
than tentative ; and itis only by making frequent ventures, and being 
content to see our first efforts fail, that we can ever arrive at any 
conclusions regarding the glacial epoch in Scotland. Though we 
have a number of so-called facts ready-made to our hand, yet the 
difficulty is to believe them, simply because the recorders, though 
perfectly honest and upright, see these facts through a precon- 
ceived theory, and, unknown to themselves, twist them into a form 
which will support their views, and omit (unintentionally) to record 
the very things most necessary to be observed. I conceive, however, 
that we are on the right track, and that it is only by long obser- 
vation of the glacial system of Greenland (because in Spitzbergen 
the glaciers are on such a small scale as to show us glaciation but 
imperfectly ') that we can ever arrive at a sound knowledge of the 
that of theory founded on ascertained facts. An ancient river-bed shows that 
at the time of its formation Scotland must have been at least 260 feet higher - 
than the present level; and the river which flowed in it most likely was a tri- 
butary of the Rhine. Whether we can agree with Mr. Croll, however, in be- 
lieving the glacial ‘‘period” to have been a succession of heats and colds, re- 
quires further consideration of facts. 
: Spitzber gen, like all the high Arctic islands of any size, has an “ inland 
ice” and elacier- -system of its own ; but it is too intersected by fjords and broken . 
