&7 



to believe in a glacial period at all, such as Sir Henry Howorth, 

 who has argued with great force and precision that a great part of 

 the supposed evidences of the glacial period can best be explained 

 by the violent action of flowing water and torrents such as he 

 believes were produced by the rapid submergence and emergence of 

 land at the close of the palaeolithic age. This is an example of an 

 extreme view, held nevertheless by a man of considerable eminence 

 as a geologist, and whose opinions cannot lightly be disregarded. It 

 becomes, I think, those who are not experts to favour moderate 

 views and leave the specialists to fight out the extreme views 

 between themselves. Whilst referring no more to Sir Henry 

 Howorth, I will proceed briefly to show why in the opinionsof many 

 geologists it is impossible to credit the theory of this vast Scandi- 

 navian ice cap extending over Great Britain, and further to show that 

 even if such had been the case it could not have produced the 

 phenomena which its existence has been invoked to account for. 



As an example of the conditions which are supposed to have 

 prevailed over the whole of Northern Europe during the glacial 

 period, we are directed by writers on the subject, from the day of 

 Eyell onwards, to the present condition of Greenland, with its huge 

 covering of ice, possibly 6,000 or more feet in thickness. It is 

 largely by a study of the conditions there prevailing to-day that an 

 understanding of ice action as it was during the glacial period can 

 be obtained. On looking at a map of the Arctic regions we find that 

 this enormous ice-covering is largely a local condition, obtaining 

 chiefly in Greenland and in certain parts of Alaska, whilst there are 

 vast tracts of land, especially in northern Siberia, but also in North 

 America, as well as many islands, which, although the temperature 

 is as low or lower than in Greenland, have no such ice-covering at 

 all. In these parts there may be merely local glaciers, and in some 

 only winter ice and snow prevail. Professor Bonney in his book on 

 "ice Work," says," "A study of the Arctic regions quickly 

 impresses one fact upon our minds, viz., the markedly unequal dis- 

 tribution of the larger masses of land ice. This completely covers 

 a very large part ot Greenland, while there are few glaciers of 

 importance in Grinnell Land on the opposite side of Smith Sound. 

 The other islands north of the American continent, though some 

 are of fair size and rise to a considerable elevation, nowhere exhibit 

 an accumulation of ice in any way comparable with that of Green- 

 land. The same is true of the northern part of Siberia ; the cold 

 there is no less intense than in the north of the other continent ; a 

 very large siice of Siberia is included within the annual isotherm of 

 32 0 F., no inconsiderable piece within that of 5 0 , while the January 

 temperature in Yatatsk in latitude 62 Q north is as low as — 40 0 F., 

 and the soil is permanently frozen to a depth of about 700ft. Yet 

 in all this region, notwithstanding the intense cold, glaciers are 



unknown So far as temperature goes, a Glacial Epoch rules 



in Siberia, but no marks of ice-action will be left behind in the event 

 of its departure." It is evident therefore that the mere lowness of 

 temperature which formerly prevailed will not justify the assumption 



p. 39. Ed. 1896. 



