272 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
appear to have descended into the sea during the glacial period. The phe- 
nomena of Sutherlandshire appear to have forced such an analogy on the mind 
of Sir R. Murchison, when lately exploring this region. Glacial vestiges are 
no less marked over the rugged and inhospitable island of Skye. 
Professor Agassiz is of opinion that the parallel roads of Glenroy, near the 
foot of Ben Nevis, are attributable to a lateral glacier having been projected 
across the vaUey, near Bridge Roy, and another across the valley of Glen 
Speane. 
By this means glacier lakes were formed, along whose margin the stratified 
terraces of gravel were produced, which are now seen to line the flanks of the 
valley at a perfectly horizontal level through several leagues. The subsequent 
melting of the glaciers has entirely obliterated any traces of the agent by means 
of which the waters were pent up. Mr. Darwin, however, takes a difPerent 
view of the subject, considering that the parallel roads are marine terraces, 
formed during the submergence of the land to a depth of one thousand two 
hundred and fifty feet, their present elevation. 
Professor Agassiz and Dr. Buckland considered not only that glaciers once 
existed in the British Islands, but that large sheets of ice \nappes) covered all 
the surface of the districts surrounding the Highland groups. This opinion 
is founded on the wide extent to which unstratified gravels, perched blocks, 
and polished surfaces in situ are distributed over tlie districts adjacent to the 
centres of distribution. It is now generally allowed that floating ice, or rather 
stciraming ice, has played a more important part in producing these phenomena 
than was supposea by the founders of the glacial theory. It is, indeed, an 
almost unsolved problem, how we are, in all cases, to distinguish between the 
effects of icebergs charged with stones scraping along the sides and bottoms of 
the channels through which they float, and the effects of subaerial glaciers. 
If of large size, and impelled by prevalent Avinds or currents in one general 
direction, they would produce polished, grooved and rounded surfaces on the 
rocks with which they would come in contact, and leave behind blocks and 
debris strewn so as to resemble the matter of moraines. At the same time there 
are several classes of objects which could only have been produced by sub- 
aerial glaciers, and others which bear the unmistakable impress of aqueous 
deposition." The great object to be accomplished is the production of maps 
showing the direction of the striae, the position of the moraines, and the limits 
of the di-ift, amongst the highlands of Britain. 
Remarks upon the Flint-Implements foutid at Amiens and Abbeville in connection 
with the Glacial Theory. By Adml. Wauchope. Sweeter: Penrith. 
In this pamphlet Admiral Wauchope attempts to co-relate the flood of 
Noah with the Glacial period; and to show that the subsidence of East 
Florida, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Labrador, by diverting the Gulf 
Stream, was the cause of the dispersion of icebergs over Europe. One re- 
markable statement is made at page 7, which it is highly desirable should be 
elucidated by a more particular statement of the facts, — the passage we aUude 
to runs thus " Ail these events would produce a climate of equal cold with the 
Polar regions. This would cause a rapid, and aU but total extinction of the 
huge Mammalia that browsed in thousands in the valleys and wooded plains. 
The Irish Elk was also most likely destroyed at this time ; for I can prove its 
having been contemporaneous with man, having seen a sto7ie hammer sticking 
in the skull of one ^ and also the heads of others which had been perforated by the 
same kind of weapon" 
