244 R. Chambers, Esq., on Glacial Phenomena 



moraine near Maxwellton House, in Kirkcudbright, and seen 

 fine smoothing with striation on the surface of Corncockle 

 Muir. in Dumfriesshire. When we add these situations to 

 those previously ascertained, we see that glacial phenomena 

 are so widely distributed, that it is making but a small de- 

 mand on hypothesis to say, that we should find traces of ice 

 everywhere, except at the utmost on the summits of the loftier 

 hills, if all our rock-surfaces were exposed, and if all those 

 actually exposed had been equally capable of retaining the 

 impressions made by ice. In point of fact, we may see in every 

 valley in the country, forms of the surface which, though 

 changed by weathering and other agencies, it is easy to con- 

 nect through a series of similar objects with indubitable 

 glacial surfaces, so as to satisfy ourselves that these too have 

 been glacialised. Thus, nothing is more common in the High- 

 land valleys than rounded humps of upturned gneiss or mica- 

 slate, with the strata shorn sharply through. In many in- 

 stances, exposure has caused a weathering, the extent of 

 which we may know to be one, two, or even three inches, by 

 the prominence of quartz veins to that height. Near these, 

 we often find, where a recent exposure has taken place, sur- 

 faces of the same rock, finely smoothed and striated. Other 

 examples in all intermediate degrees of weathering can be 

 detected, clearly shewing that the polished condition was ori- 

 ginally that of all such rounded masses. Hence, even when 

 there is a single case decided of polishing in a whole glen, 

 Ave may see enough to prove that such was the original con- 

 dition of the whole. So also, if we find sandstone of a cer- 

 tain considerable degree of hardness always presented pro- 

 minently above the surface, as at Ravelston and Craigleith, 

 in Mid Lothian, at Cullelo in Fife, and at Brora in Suther- 

 landshire, and always in these instances smoothed and 

 striated even after long exposure, we may not unreasonably 

 infer that other sandstone surfaces, in no respect of relative 

 situation different, but comparatively soft, and tending to a 

 blazy condition of the surface, would have been glacialised 

 likewise, if of the proper consistence. 



As our own neighbourhood is specially rich in the pheno- 



