KING — GLACIAL AND POST-GLACIAL DEPOSITS. 



1G;) 



and sea over the British area was approximately the same as at pre- 

 sent. 



3rd. The edge of the two-hundred-fathoms submarine plateau, on 

 the east side of the North Atlantic, formed the west coast-line of a 

 continent (now represented by Europe) during the earliest time 

 (epoch) of the Glacial period. 



4th. The climate of the British area was frigid in the extreme 

 during the Glacial period, allowing epochs of amelioration. 



5th. liock-surfaces undergo enormous degradation when they are 

 above the sea-level, during the prevalency of glaciation. 



General Observations on the above. 



1st Premiss. Besides the great vertical movements which cha- 

 racterized the Glacial period, there are evidences, hereafter noticed, 

 that it was marked by minor vertical oscillations. Further, it is pro- 

 bable that the former were not of equal magnitude over the entire 

 area of the British Isles ; land might be standing somewhat higher 

 or lower in the east than in the west ; the same difference may have 

 prevailed meridionally. 



2nd. The "Cromer Norway Spruce-forest" bed evidently formed 

 a land-surface at the close of the Pliocene period ; while the over- 

 lying " Runton Leda myalis clay" shows that the forest-bed be- 

 came afterwards submerged. Further, the shells occurring in the 

 Runton deposit may be accepted as a clear proof that the sea in 

 which they lived was Arctic in its temperature ; the same may be 

 affirmed of the "Norwich Crag" sea. There is no novelty in these 

 conclusions. Doubtless the elevated regions of the British area, 

 during the prevalency of the Pliocene Arctic temperature, were un- 

 dergoing glaciation. It is equally admissible that the then German 

 Ocean was traversed by icebergs, transporting blocks from northern 

 latitudes. These considerations lead me to assume that the foreign 

 erratics, common in the unstratified drift or till of the north of 

 England and the more southern counties, are Pliocene in age, and 

 that they afterwards became mixed with lowland accumulations of 

 field- and mountain-glacier debris, formed during the earliest division 

 of the Glacial period, that is, when the bed of the German Ocean was 

 all a terrestrial surf ce. I doubt that any Pliocene foreign erratic s 

 are anywhere to be seen under their original form of accumulation. 



3rd. My late investigations on the soundings obtained by ELM S. 

 Porcupine* have convinced me that the remarkable rapid-sinking edge 

 of the two-hundred-fathoms submarine plateau, forming the I rish sea- 

 bed, as well as the extension of this edge, both north and south, has 

 been cutaway by the North Atlantic when its waters were confined 

 within the bounding meridians of the t wo-milos-doep submarine plain, 

 across which it is proposed to run the telegraph cable from Ireland to 

 Newfoundland. Geological evidences go far to prove that the above 



* Sec my papers in the ' Nautical Magazine' of November anil December, I Sl"> a 

 corrected copy of which appeared in the ' Daily News ' of December '2 I, ISt):.' , also my 

 "Reply to Dr. Wallich's Statements/' Naut. Mag., March, iSOIi. 



VOL. VI. Z 



