1873.] CAMPBELL — GLACIATION OF IRELAND. 207 



rections in which water in equal volume would flow more swiftly. 

 By this alphabet I will now try to spell out some of the ice-records 

 on Irish rocks*. 



1. Small mountain-glaciers. — In Norway, districts of varying area, 

 from a patch as big as several Irish counties to a mere hill-top, still 

 are covered by thick beds of snow and plastic glacier-ice. About 

 Bergen long deep fjords a hundred miles long lead up to long deep 

 glens, which are rock-grooves. These lead up to smaller branching 

 glens of like pattern, of which some lead up to the ice-regions. The 

 ice forms upon high plateaux. All these hollows are of one pattern. 

 A section is like the letter U ; they have steep rocky sides ; and drift 

 of sorts is packed in the grooves from the sea up to the ice. At the 

 head of the Sogne Fjord in one of these long deep bare rocky grooves, 

 about three miles from the sea and amongst cornfields, is a glacier 

 called Supedledals lis Brae. It is made of ice which falls from the 

 ice-plateau down a steep rock-face. It falls in fragments, which 

 " regelate " and form a pile which slides down into the glen, and 

 shapes itself as any other plastic mass might do. It moves from the 

 side of the U towards the centre ; and it draws marks at right angles 

 to the run of the main stream, and to the ebb and flow of the sea in 

 the fjord. But the movement of this side glacier is parallel to that 

 of small streams, which trickle down the side of the rock-groove 

 and join the main river in the bottom. 



In Donegal, between Gweebarra Bay and Lough Veagh, a deep 

 groove crosses Ireland from N.E. to S.W., with a col 750 feet high 

 joining hills which are about 2500 feet high. On the northern side 

 of this straight bare N.E. groove is a mountain called Slieve Snaght 

 (snow mountain). On the other side is a hill of about the same 

 height. About Lough Barra, which is close to the watershed, the 

 rocks on both sides and in the bottom of the groove are smoothed 

 and ground ; they are almost bare of vegetation : their structure can 

 be seen as in a model ; and they are glaciated. Opposite to a cliff 

 at the base of Snow Mountain are fresh ice-grooves in a roadside 

 gravel-pit. They come from the cliff and go towards the lake and 

 the river. It is therefore clearly recorded that an Irish glacier, 

 like the glacier in Bergen, once existed in this Donegal pass, which 

 is a miniature copy of a Scandinavian rock-groove. 



Glaciers of this kind may be seen in mountain-districts where 

 glaciers have decreased in size. Tracks of glaciers of this class 

 abound in Kerry, in Connemara, in the Mourne Mountains, and else- 

 where in Ireland. They all came down steep inclines from high 

 points near the grounds where snow first appears in autumn and 

 lingers the longest in spring, as it does upon Slieve Snaght, in 

 Donegal, which a native unused to Celtic called " Sniff Snaff." 



2. River-glaciers. — In the Bergen district above mentioned some 

 of the upper branches of the main glens lead directly up to the 



* Dr. Tyndall's book on the ' Forms of Water ' entirely confirms what is here 

 said. His own experiments and those which he describes, new and old, prove 

 that glaciers flow and weld when broken. A set of prints, photographs, and 

 sketches were produced with rubbings, taken by the author during many years. 



