91 



that the channel of the German Ocean had not then been excavated, 

 only introduce greater difficulties to their advocates. 



Turning now from Scandinavia we will briefly consider a few 

 points in the glaciation of our own country bearing upon this subject 

 And it has been chiefly to explain the relics of ice-work in the 

 British Isles that the idea of this vast ice-sheet has originated, 

 it having been supposed, and being still maintained by advanced 

 glacialists, that no other hypothesis can account for the effects of 

 glaciation here met with. Time will only permit me to touch upon 

 the main features of the argument. Now according to the late Mr. 

 Croll, whose ingenious theory as to the eccentricity of the earth's 

 orbit (which, however, has now been generally relinquished) advanced 

 him to the position of a high priest of the extreme glacial cult, the 

 ice-sheet extended as far westwards as the Faroe Islands. This 

 statement, however, was subsequently contradicted by Mr. James 

 Geikie, who says in his Prehistoric Europe* "these islands supported 

 a local and independent ice-sheet of their own, which flowed 

 outwards in all directions into the surrounding ocean." Next in the 

 case of the Shetland Islands, which all advocates of the great ice- 

 sheet admit must have been enveloped by it, Mr. Milne Horne 

 questions this view in the Q. J. G. Soc.,i pointing out that the 

 striations of the rocks disprove this supposition, there being no 

 uniformity in their direction, except near the south end of the group, 

 where instead of being from the north-east the glacial markings are 

 from the north-west. He believes that they cannot have been 

 caused by ice-sheets from Norway, but must have originated in 

 local glaciers. Messrs. Peach J and Horne both make the striations 

 on the Orkneys come from the south-east, but how can, we may ask, 

 these have been caused by ice proceeding from the north-east ? 

 Passing to the North of Scotland, where, if anywhere, striae on the 

 rocks from north or north-east must have been caused if the 

 Scandinavian ice-theory be true, various observers seem to agree in 

 the general divergence of ice-striae, and none seem able to determine 

 a definite direction for these. § They appear to radiate from the 

 higher mountains in the directions which we would expect if caused 

 by local glaciers. 



Two other significant relics of ice-action which are freely dis- 

 tributed over our country, and evidence of the existence of which 

 south of the Thames valley is claimed by Dr. Colley March, are (1) 

 the presence of foreign erratic blocks, and (2) the frequent beds of 

 glacial boulder clay and gravels. None of these, however, demand 

 the theory oi a huge ice-sheet for their explanation. It has been 

 shown by many writers and is still believed by distinguished 

 geologists that these can amply be accounted for by the transport of 

 materials by floating ice and ice-bergs, whether from Norway or 

 elsewhere consequent upon the submergences to which England was 

 subject in many parts during and after the glacial period, and also 



*pp. 205-206. 

 f November, 1879. 

 I British Association Reports, 1864. 

 § Glacial Nightmare and the Flood. Vol. ii, pp. 712-713. 



