2G8 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
comer of the room — so hard, and beautiful, and polished — originating in the 
animal matter of a jelly-fish (/), a ton of which creatures would not leave an 
ounce of solid material. Has the author of the paper ever seen a jelly-fish ? 
Has he ever seen those shoals of "slutter" melting into water and eva- 
porating on our beaches, without even staining the stones on which they rested? 
Of all tilings to form a nucleus — a jelly-fish ! the largest of which, weighing' 
three or four pounds, does not leave as many grains of matter ; and this too, 
printed under the sanction of a London committee of a London society, mus- 
tering E.G.Ss, and T.C.Ss, and M.M.Ss, and P.R.A.Ss, with one of the 
council of the Geological Society as president, and an M.A. as honorary 
secretary. The only excuse we can make for them is, that they must have left 
this paper on Sheppey to its fate at the printer's, who, certainly, was not a 
naturalist, much less a geologist. 
Oti tlw Vestiges of Extinct Glaciers in the neighbourhood of Great Britain and 
Ireland. By Edward Hull, F.G.S. 
In the early part of last year a paper on this subject was read before the Philo- 
sophical Society of Manchester, by Mr. Edw. Hull, of the Geological Survey. 
"As far back as the year 1821 M. Yenetz first announced his opinion, 
founded on ample testimony, that the glaciers of the Alps formerly extended 
far beyond their present limits. These views were subsequently confirmed by 
MM. Charpentier and Agassiz, and are now universally received. But it was 
not until the year 1842 that Dr. Buckland published his reasons for believing 
that the mountains of Csernarvonshire gave birth to glaciers which descended 
along seven main valleys ; and that to these agents are to be attributed the 
polished, fluted and striated rock-surfaces which may be traced at intervals 
along the pass of Llanberris and elsewhere. This opinion, at first received 
with incredulity, was subsequently confirmed by Mr. Darwin and Professor 
Ramsay. 
" The grounds upon which Dr. Buckland rested his conclusions were pre- 
cisely those upon which M. Venetz inferred formed extension of the Alpine 
glaciers. The effects of these streams of ice moving along their channels have 
now been repeatedly observed not only in central Europe, but in the Arctic 
regions, where they descend into the sea and give origin to icebergs. These 
effects consist in the polishing and moulding the bottoms and sides of the 
valleys into smooth oval bosses, or roches moutonnees — the production of striae, 
flutings and scratches (which are generally parallel in a given locality) ; also, 
perched blocks and moraines. The combination of these phenomena in any 
region can only be attributed to the agency of glacial ice, as there is no other 
known power capable of producing them. When to these is added the dispersion 
of erratic blocks, or boulders of large size, over a district extending many miles 
from the parent masses to which they may be traced, we cannot^ hesitate to 
refer the transportation of these blocks to floating icebergs derived from glaciers 
in a manner similar to that which is in operation along the coast of Greenland, 
or amongst the fiords of Tierra del Euego." 
The only British district where, as far as I am aware, a detailed survey of 
the glacial strise has been accomplished, is that of Snowdon by Professor A. C. 
Ramsay. The author gives in this paper a short sketch of the gjlacial vestiges 
Avhich are to be found amongst the mountains of KiUarney in Ireland, of 
Caernarvon in Xorth Wales, of the Lake district in England, and the Scottish 
Highlands. 
Professor Agassiz, in giving a general sketch of the ancient glacial centres 
of the British Islands, includes amongst them the mountainous district of Kerry, 
at the southern extremity of Ireland, at the entrance to which are situated the 
