1872.] 73 (Perry. 
the height of five thousand feet might as readily occur as a depres- 
sion of equal amount; but this does not relieve the matter in the 
least. The glacier hypothesis surely cannot stand on the ground 
simply that it is not less probable than the suppositions made by the 
advocates of the iceberg theory. If it be not far more credible, in a 
much greater degree consonant with the facts, let us drop the theory, 
and simply cling to what is capable of defence. So much for the 
present in respect to a continental elevation. 
In regard to the New Haven region during the Glacial period, 
Prof. Dana observes: it “stood probably one or two hundred feet 
above the level of the sea.”1 After examining what he has to say, 
and all that I can find respecting the question whether the neighbor- 
hood of New Haven were then at a greater height than now, Iam 
constrained to add that there appears to be little known evidence 
that is decisive in either direction. It is not easy to disprove.the 
supposition that such may have been the case; no.more can one 
always, at once and readily, rebut many conjectures that are merely 
vagaries. At the same time, the several facts which the Professor 
adduces as proof may be all, so far as yet appears, as satisfactorily, 
if not far more adequately explained in other ways. This being so, 
and with no positive evidence up to this time of an elevation, 
it seems to be wiser, while it is certainly the more sober course, not 
to suppose that there was really an uplift until we find in the rocks, 
our great “book of testimony,” some distinct intimation of its occur- 
rence. . 
But if there were no elevation of the continent how are we to 
explain the formation of fiords; the existence of sub-marine river 
channels, like those extending from the mouths of the Hudson and the 
Connecticut; or the fact of sub-aerial deposits, as mud-flats, now 
found beneath the level of the ocean? As to the supposed evidence 
- in favor of elevation, furnished by these phenomena, a few words are 
necessary. In his “ Manual of Geology,” Prof. Dana, while speaking 
of the deep bays known as fiords, says, they “must have been exca- 
vated, like most other valleys, by the action of running water or ice, 
and this could have been done only when the country along the sea- 
border was so raised that they were occupied by streams and glaciers 
from the land, instead of the waters of the ocean.” ? Without enter- 
ing upon a discussion of the questions involved in the origin and 
1 Geology of the New Haven Region, p.48. 2 Manual of Geology, p. 548. 
