GLACIAL THEORIES. 
287 
him to the conclusion that at one time in the history of the earth 
the whole northern hemisphere had been enveloped in a great sheet 
of ice. The surface of Europe, adorned before by a tropical vege- 
tation, and inhabited by troops of large elephants, enormous hippo- 
potami, and gigantic carnivora, was suddenly buried under a vast 
mantle of ice, covering alike plains, lakes, seas and plateaus. Upon 
the life and movement of a powerful creation fell the silence of death. 
Springs paused, rivers ceased to flow, the rays of the sun, rising upon 
this frozen shore (if, indeed, it was reached by them), were met only 
by the breath of the winter from the north, and the thunders of the 
crevasses as they opened across the surface of this icy sea.""' 
The views thus expounded by Louis Agassiz were first ridiculed 
by the geologists all over Europe, and amongst others by Dr. Buckland 
in England. He was, however, persuaded by Agassiz to visit Switzer- 
land, and speedily became convinced that there was much truth in 
the tlieories of his enthusiastic guide. In 1840, Agassiz visited 
England, to attend the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow. 
He was convinced that in the Highlands of Scotland, and the mount- 
ainous parts of England and Wales, evidence would be found of the 
truth of his glacial theories. Dr. Buckland volunteered to be his 
guide in the search for these proofs, and after attending the meeting 
of the Association they made a tour of the Highlands. At the 
meeting, Agassiz read a paper on Glacial Phenomena, and the subject 
was referred to by Sir Roderick Murchison in a letter to Professor 
Sedgwick descriptive of the meeting. " Agassiz gave us a great 
field-day on glaciers, and I think we shall end in having a compromise 
between himself and us of the floating icebergs ! I spoke against the 
general application of his theory. "f Agassiz some years after recounted 
his experience of the meeting, and said, " Among the older naturalists 
only one stood by me. Dr. Buckland, Dean of Westminster, who had 
come to Switzerland at my urgent request, for the express purpose of 
seeing my evidence, and who had been fully convinced of the exten- 
sion of ice there, consented to accompany me on my glacier hunt in 
Great Britain. We went first to the Highlands of Scotland, and it 
* 'Etudies sur les Glaciers, p. 315. 
t Life of Sir R. Murchison, hy Dr. A. Geikie, 1875, vol. i., p. 307. 
