44 Ice Marks in North Wales. [Jan., 



peninsula lakes are still more numerous, abounding not only in 

 the mountain valleys but also out in the low flat country, which, 

 as well as all Finland and wide districts of North Russia, are 

 literally studded with thousands of lakes. In North America, 

 while the middle and Southern United States have scarcely any 

 lakes, all the North-eastern States, Canada, Nova Scotia, Labrador, 

 and in fact all the northern part of the continent, although much 

 of it is level ground, is absolutely strewn broadcast with lakes, 

 which must number very many thousands of every size, from the 

 great inland seas like Lake Superior down to small tarns and 

 ponds. In British Columbia, Oregon, and North California there 

 are also abundance of lakes. In the great plateau of Asia there 

 are lakes in plenty in Mongolia, in Tartary, and in Thibet, and 

 all along the northern side of the Himalayas. But on going south 

 from all these countries, the lakes in most cases abruptly cease. On 

 carefully examining the best maps of Spain, a country of immense 

 extent and highly diversified both geographically and geologically, 

 I can find not a lake marked upon them. The fine island of 

 Sardinia contains groups of mountains rising to 3,000 and 6,000 

 feet high. It has a varied geology, presenting abundance of 

 granitic, nietamorphic, tertiary, and volcanic rocks, and yet, according 

 to a large Italian Government map, it contains not a single moun- 

 tain lake. The Atlas range of mountains in North Africa presents 

 us with no lakes. In America, the great West India Islands, Cuba, 

 Jamaica, and Haiti, appear to have no lakes. Further south, the 

 immense empire of Brazil, with its vast mountain ranges, its plains, 

 savannas, and innumerable rivers, is almost destitute of lakes, 

 except a few small ones near the sources of some of its southern 

 rivers. In Asia the immense peninsula of India and the fine 

 island of Ceylon seem to have hardly a true inland lake. In 

 Africa, the Cape district and Natal have plenty of mountains but 

 no lakes. Central, Africa, it is true, has lakes, few in number but 

 of large size. They are not, however, accompanied by the immense 

 number of smaller ones which occur in every one of the before- 

 mentioned " lake- districts," and probably come under a distinct 

 categoiy, as lakes formed by unequal subsidence and upheaval. 

 Australia possesses a few lakes ; Yan Diemen's Land, several ; 

 while in New Zealand they abound, esj)ecially in the southern 

 districts where large glaciers still exist, and where there is a true 

 lake-district very similar to that, of the European Alps. 



Now here we have a most remarkable fact, — the fact which 

 must be considered in dealing with this question, — namely, that in 

 all countries and districts of the globe where the universally- 

 admitted evidence of extensive glacial action exists, lakes abound, 

 and form one of the great features of the country ; while wherever 



