TRANSPORT OF BOWLDERS IN ICE. 



539 



Once let it be granted, that large frozen masses, like those now periodically liberated 

 from the polar regions, were drifted to certain distances and in given directions by cur- 

 rents dependent on former configuration of the land, and we are furnished with an 

 adequate agent ; each icefloe as it dissolved, might have dropped its load of stones, at 

 intervals, upon a submarine surface of gravel, sand, and shells. From the observations 

 of Scoresby, Bayfield and others, we know that such operations are going on to a great 

 extent in the Atlantic, floes being sometimes wafted to very southern latitudes before 

 they are finally dissolved. This fact, indeed, was brought before the public more than 

 a century ago by Bradley 1 , who, having learned from seafaring men, that between our 

 shores and the cl Plantations," large islands of ice were sometimes met with, inferred, 

 that the vapour arising from their dissolution, must have had a sensible influence upon 

 the climate of England ! Had geology been then a science, some Lyell might have 

 seized upon this fact for the support of a wider induction than a meteorological 

 theory. 



But can we venture to adopt the icefloe hypothesis to explain the position of our 

 Salopian bowlders ? Have we a right to assume that the physical features of this 

 region were formerly so different from the present, that ice may then have been formed 

 in adequate quantities on the shores of Cumberland ? I confess that on the first consi- 

 deration I was disposed to reject such views as visionary, but reflection and reference 

 to facts have led me to perceive, that many strong arguments may be employed for their 

 adoption. In the first place, it might be said that even with the present amount of 

 land and sea, the cold of our latitudes has at times been intense enough for the pro- 

 duction of enormous masses of ice 2 . It might be argued that such frosts as those 

 which congealed the Danube from top to bottom, which closed the Dardanelles, or ren- 

 dered the Adriatic one sheet of ice, may have acted, in times long anterior to historic 

 records, on the shores and rivers of Cumberland, Scotland, and Ireland; and that the 

 ice islands set in motion at the termination of such frosts may have strewed their con- 

 tents over the bottoms of adjacent seas. If, however, such causes be not deemed 

 sufficient, the geologist may go much further in his endeavours to solve the problem. 

 Knowing that great changes of sea and land have occurred within recent periods, and 

 witnessing the mighty wreck of materials of the solid strata distributed on all sides, he 

 may venture to suggest, that when England and Wales were separated, the distribution 



recently expressed some peculiar opinions on the action of ice upon the Jura, &c. Cases purely subaerial, 

 like these, can, however, have a collateral relation only to my submarine examples. 



1 "A Survey of ancient Husbandry and Gardening," Oct. Lond. 1725, by Richard Bradley, F.R.S., and 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. 



2 In the year 1709 all the rivers and lakes were frozen, and even the seas to several miles from the shore. 

 The Adriatic Sea was quite frozen over, and even the coast of the Mediterranean about Genoa. In the year 

 1740 an ox was roasted on the Thames. In 1658 Charles X. of Sweden crossed the Little Belt with all his 

 army and artillery, &c. For a full list of all the great frosts and excessive heats, see Edinburgh Review, 

 vol. xxx. (No. lix.) p. 23 et seq. 



