SIR HEXKY H. HOWORTH^ D.C.L.^ F.R.S., OX ICE OR WATER. 231 



another explanation which might perhaps apply. Xo bodies in 

 Xatiire are absolutely rigid ; rigidity is a negative quantity, and ice 

 is a body which has a certain small residuum of fluidity appertain- 

 ing to itself, in the same sort of way as lava or treacle, so that it 

 flows slowly. This is our hypothesis based upon certain broad 

 facts, but we have the fact that the glacier does move forward, and 

 that in moving forward it will succeed in moving over hillocks 

 of moderate height at least, and will leave traces of its movement 

 behind; and that traces are left of a perfectly unmistakable 

 character, rocks getting polished, scarred and striated, which 

 can only be accoimted for by the assumption that there has been 

 extensive glacial action. 



Mr. EousE. — Would not the existence of caverns running 

 underneath glaciers for some distance, would not that be in keeping 

 with Tyndall's theory of the ice melting at the bottom in coming 

 into contact with earth and then afterwards solidifying again ? 



Mr. Bridges-Lee. — The bottom of the glacier would tend 

 always to be at most of the bottom in a melting condition. All 

 glaciers flowing over uneven surfaces, and the sun's rays melting 

 the surface, the water runs down through the crevasses to the 

 bottom, and so works out along the basin of the glaciers. For 

 €very glacier is practically the same : from the end of the glacier 

 you have a stream of water issuing, and that water is made up of a 

 number of little rills which have melted during the day time, owing 

 to the action of the sun on the surface. 



Professor Hull. — I think the discussion has been one of very 

 great interest. AVe congratulate Mr. Pilkington on sur^-iving to 

 the present day and being present here after those terrible periods 

 of cold that he has passed through in Canada. I do not see how the 

 observations that he had made then, and which he has now 

 recounted, really affect the question with which I have endeavoured 

 to deal in my essay. I think the questions stand quite aloof. I 

 will only refer to one point, where he said there is nothing in the 

 Bible which indicates the existence of a glacial period. Quite true j 

 but can you suppose that in Palestine, in that warm climate, 

 anything in the shape of "glacial ice would have been present to 

 attract the attention of the writers of the Old Testament history 1 

 But notwithstanding that, let me say that Mount Hermon in the 

 Lebanon, which rises 12,000 feet above the sea, was undoubtedly 



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