174 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART I 



Now Dr. Croll gives us the following account of the 

 present aspect of the surface of a large part of the coun- 

 try :— 



"Go where one will in the lowlands of Scotland and he 

 shall hardly find a single acre whose upper surface bears 

 the marks of being formed by the denuding agents now in 

 operation. He will observe everywhere mounds and 

 hollows which cannot be accounted for by the present 

 agencies at work. ... In regard to the general sur- 

 face of the country the present agencies may be said to be 

 just beginning to carve a new line of features out of the 

 old glacially-formed surface. But so little progress has 

 yet been made, that the kames, gravel-mounds, knolls of 

 boulder clay, &c., still retain in most cases their original 

 form." ^ 



The facts here seem a little inconsistent, and we must 

 suppose that Dr. Croll has somewhat exaggerated the uni- 

 versality and complete preservation of the glaciated sur- 

 face. The amount of average denudation, however, is not 

 a matter of opinion but of measurement ; and its conse- 

 quences can in no way be evaded. They are, moreover, 

 strictly proportionate to the time elapsed ; and if so much 

 of the old surface of the country has certainly been re- 

 modelled or carried into the sea since the last glacial epoch, 

 it becomes evident that any surface-phenomena produced 

 by still earlier glacial epochs miist have long since entirely 

 disappeared. 



Bise of the Sea-level Conneeted with Glaeial Epochs, a Cause 

 of Further Denudation. — There is also another powerful 

 agent that must have assisted in the destruction of any 

 such surface deposits or markings. During the last glacial 

 epoch itself there were several minor oscillations of the land, 

 without counting the great submergence of over 1,300 feet, 

 supposed to be indicated by patches of shelly clays and 

 gravels in Wales and Ireland, and also in a few localities in 

 England and Scotland, since these are otherwise explained 

 by many geologists. Other subsidences have no doubt oc- 

 curred in the same areas during the Tertiary epoch, and 

 some writers connect these subsidences with the glacial 

 1 Climate and Time in their Geological Relations, p. 341. 



