262 R. Chambers, Esq.,. on Qlaetal Phenomena 



loose materials of sand and pebbles, broke off all angular 

 and projecting points of rock, and when fragments of hard 

 stone were frozen into their lower surfaces, scooped out 

 grooves in the subjacent solid strata." Now, the floating 

 and stranding of icebergs are familiar facts; but no one 

 ever saw a sea-bottom worn or scratched by such an agent, or 

 could prove that such an operation ever takes place, except at 

 the utmost in a partial and casual manner. It is in the main 

 a conjecture. Another was not long ago satisfied that " waves 

 of translation," breaking away from centres where a sudden 

 upheaval of the land had taken place, were sufficient to ac- 

 count for the phenomena, but appears to be now of opinion 

 that glaciers, floating ice, and currents, have all been con- 

 cerned in producing the effects, though still without address- 

 ing himself to, or admitting, the fact of the parallelism of 

 striation over a large surface, which no such agents could 

 have produced. Sir Roderick Murchison surmised that " the 

 ice-floes and their detritus might be set in motion by the ele- 

 vation of the Scandinavian continent, and the consequent 

 breaking-up of the great glaciers on the northern shores of 

 a sea which then covered all the flat regions of Russia." 

 But this is an operation which has never been seen in nature, 

 and, even though it were to take place, we hold that the ice 

 and detritus, borne along in a wave of the sea, are still in- 

 competent to produce the various effects of abrasion, polish- 

 ing, and striation, which are to be accounted for. Besides, 

 Sir Roderick would need to shew — what he has not attempted 

 — that the British islands and Northern America had a simi- 

 lar northern mountain chain to send forth the ice-floes and 

 detritus required in their cases. We have always been led 

 to understand that it was a rule of scientific geology to refer 

 ancient phenomena to causes which we see producing similar 

 effects at the present day ; but here the rule seems to be set 

 aside in favour of a cause which has no known effects what- 

 ever. 



It may be asked, can we seriously attach the least value to 

 any theory which either ignores the great and palpable facts, 

 or leaves them totally unaccounted for ? Yet this is the cha- 

 racter of the theories here referred to. I shall proceed to 





