17i MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



deposit in which they might, ex hypothesis be found, yet 

 the strict limitation of them to situations which conform 

 to those assigned upon theoretical grounds cannot be as- 

 cribed to mere coincidence. If the land had ever been 

 submerged during any part of the Glacial epoch to a depth 

 of 1,400 feet, it is inconceivable that clear and indisputable 

 evidence should not be found in abundance in the shel- 

 tered valleys of the Lake District and Wales, which would 

 have been deep, quiet fiords, in which vast colonies of ma- 

 rine creatures would have found harbour, as they do in the 

 deep lochs of Scotland to-day. 



" It has been urged, in explanation of this absence of 

 marine remains in the great hill- centres, that the ' second 

 glaciation ' might have destroyed them ; but to do this 

 would require that the ice should make a clean and com- 

 plete sweep of all the loose deposits both in the hollows of 

 the valleys and on the hill-sides, and further that it should 

 destroy all the shells and all the foreign stones which 

 floated in during the submergence. At the same time we 

 should have to suppose that the drift which lay in the 

 paths of the great glaciers was not subjected to any inter- 

 ference whatever. But, assuming that these difficulties 

 were explained, there would still remain the fact that the 

 valleys which have never been glaciated — as, for example, 

 those of Derbyshire — show no signs whatever of any ma- 

 rine deposits, nor of marine action in any form whatever. 



" The sea leaves other traces also, besides shells, of its 

 presence in districts that have really been submerged, yet 

 there are no signs whatever to be found of them in all Eng- 

 land, except the^ostf-glacial raised beaches. Furthermore, 

 in all the area occupied by glacial deposits there are no true 

 sea-beaches, no cliffs nor sea-worn caves, no barnacle- 

 encrusted rocks, nor rocks bored by Pholas or Saxicava. 

 Are we to believe that these never existed ; or that, having 

 existed, they have been obliterated by subsequent denuda- 

 tions ? To make good the former proposition, it would be 



