KING 
GLACIAL AXD POST-GLACIAL DEPOSITS. 
IGO 
and sea over the British area was approximately the same as at pre- 
seut. 
3rd. The edge of the two-himdred-fathoms submarine plateau, on 
the east side of the North Atlautic, 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. Eock-surfaces undergo enormous degradation when they are 
above the sea-level, during the prevalency of glaciation. 
General Observations on the alove. 
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 tlie west ; the same diflerence may have 
prevailed meridionally. 
2tid. The "Cromer Norway Spruce-forest" bed evidently formed 
a land-surface at the close of the Pliocene period ; while the over- 
lying " Kunton Leda inyaJis clay " shows that the forest-bed be- 
came afterwards submerged. Purther, the shells occurring in the 
Kunton 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 surface. I doubt that any Pliocene foreign erratics 
are anywhere to be seen under their original form of accumulation. 
3rd. My late investigations on the soundings obtained by H.IM S. 
Porcupine* have convinced me that the remarkable rapid-sinking edge 
of the two-hundred-fathoms submarine plateau, forming the Irish sea- 
bed, as well as the extension of this edge, both north and south, has 
been cut away by the North Atlantic when its waters were confined 
within the bounding meridians of the two-miles-deep 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 
* See my papers iu the 'Nautical Magazine' of November and December, 1862 (a 
corrected copy of which appeared in the ' Daily News ' of December 24, 1862) ; also my 
"Reply to Dr. Wallich's Statements," Naut. Mag., March, 1863. 
VOL. TI. Z 
