THE GLACIAL PERIOD. i 75 



the agency of floating-ice. It is not my intention to combat this 

 view here ; it has already, as I believe, received the coup de grace 

 at the hands of many glacialists, 1 British and foreign, and may be 

 allowed to die in peace. It has been abandoned in Switzerland, 

 where all the phenomena of glaciation are so well developed ; it 

 has become equally extinct in Scandinavia. In our own country, 

 notwithstanding our insular position and supposed affection 

 for the sea, its supporters are rapidly diminishing in number ; 

 and of American observers the same tale may be told. I would 

 not have the reader to suppose, however, that modern glacialists 

 have discarded the notion that any part of the land during the 

 Glacial Period was submerged, or that they refuse to believe that 

 any of our erratics have been transported by floating-ice. On 

 the contrary, the evidence that large areas have been submerged 

 is overwhelming, and not a few erratics occur at low levels in 

 our maritime regions which there is every reason to suppose 

 have been carried there by ice-rafts. But the more salient 

 features of the phenomena, such as the rounded rocks, the 

 smoothed, polished, and striated surfaces, we do not believe ice- 

 bergs had any share in producing; and they are just as inadequate 

 to explain the formation and distribution of those 'vast sheets 

 and mounds of stones, clay, gravel, sand, and erratics, of which I 

 shall speak by and by. 



The spoor of the old glaciers, which formerly existed in the 

 British Islands, has been followed successfully by a large band 

 of enthusiastic observers, and the results they have come to are 

 certainly, when baldly stated, enough to take one's breath away. 

 But however astonishing they may seem to those who hear of 

 them for the first time, they are yet based upon abundant facts 

 w^hich are not local or confined only to a few isolated areas, 

 but general throughout all Ireland, Scotland, and a large portion 

 of England. Neither are these facts such as can be explained 



1 See Ramsay, Old Glaciers of Wales ; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii. p. 

 202 ; Jamieson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii. p. 164 ; vol. xxi. p. 162 ; 

 A. Geikie, Trans. Geol. Soc, Glasgow, vol. i. pt. ii. ; Croll, Climate and Time, p. 

 273 ; Dana, American Journal of Science and Art, 1873 ; Manual of 

 2d ed., p. 534. For other references see Great Ice Age. 



