4 
Perry.] 68 [February 25, 
scattered far and wide over a broad surface both by waves and the 
flux and the reflux of the daily recurring tides. Under such cireum- 
stances the deposit should certainly have been very unlike that known 
as typical drift. 
Again we find the case not essentially different, when we come to 
examine some of the incidental phenomena of the glacial period. 
Looking at the matter in the light just suggested, we at once see 
that icebergs are not sufficient to account for many peculiarities of 
the masses known as morainic. Let a berg of ice as grounded gradu- 
ally melt — suppose it to waste away by slow degrees, as it naturally 
would —the result surely could not be a moraine, an osar, or any- 
thing of the kind. Were a mass of ice, as it moved along, to plough 
up the stratified material which lay in its way, while effects of the 
disturbance would appear, there would seldom, and perhaps never, be 
an entire obliteration of the marks of bedding; still less should we 
find the mass an indiscriminate blending of diverse elements, as in 
existing moraines. And it would be a rare incident —a most extra- 
ordinary marvel—for icebergs to produce a series of what are known 
as boulder trains. While one can readily conceive of the occurrence 
of a single line of erratics, he might rather expect in places to see 
the whole surface covered with travelled rocks. Meanwhile we 
should not look for three, four or five, much less for six or seven, 
parallel sets formed like those in Berkshire County, Mass., each being 
for the most part distinct, and characterized by rocks peculiar to the 
portions of the ledges lying at their respective sources, with the par- 
allelism and distinctness preserved for five, ten and even fifteen and 
twenty miles. And it would be stranger still if icebergs actually 
chose just those heights for their resting-places, on which perched 
rocks are now found in greatest numbers, and if boulders, cargo after 
cargo, were so deposited as not to be removed by later bergs, or by 
the action of waves and tides, when these peaks came to be on the 
surface-level of a retiring oeean. As seen in this light the usual ex- 
planation of those remnants of old lines of shore, which have been 
often, if not generally, called ancient marine beaches, derives little 
probability from the supposed existence of an iceberg sea. In fact, 
the whole matter seems to be an outright assumption, so far as marine 
agency is concerned. | 
To take a single instance illustrative of the matter in question: up 
to this time no one has discovered any direct or satisfactory evidence 
that the famous Ripton Beach was either shaped, or ever for a mo- 
