903 
of Edinhurgh, Session 1883 - 84 . 
7. It remains to notice what light is thrown on the subject by 
the Faroe Islands. 
As Professor Geikie is satisfied that glaciers, or an ice sheet of 
some kind, existed, capable of glaciating the rocks and moving 
boulders, that view, entertained by an observer of so much 
experience and intelligence, will be at once accepted. 
But the farther question arises. Whether there is evidence of 
there having existed also, at some other period, the agency of 
floating ice ? 
Professor Geikie does not admit that there is such evidence; and 
it has to be confessed that only one place on the islands has as yet 
been pointed out where such evidence is alleged to exist. 
Mr Allan having drawn attention to the peninsula of Eide, 
as presenting rock smoothings and striations similar to those 
pointed out by Sir James Hall on Corstorphine Hill, Dr Eobert 
Chambers, when he visited the Earoes forty years afterwards, 
went to Eide, on purpose (as he says) to study the appearances 
which Mr Allan had only generally described. He states that 
he ‘‘ looked narrowly for the striae or scratches ; ” and saw that 
“ they presented themselves in abundance in several places ; ” and 
he says that he was satisfied that they were “ all directed from 
the north.” 
Professor Geikie, in his Memoir, adverting to these same rocks, 
states, they are “perhaps the best preserved roc7^e5 moutonnees he 
anywhere observed;” — but as to the direction in which the smooth- 
ing and striating agent had moved, which Dr Chambers alleged to 
be “ from the north,” Professor Geikie states that the striae “ had 
clearly been graved by ice, coming from guile the opposite point of 
the compass ” (p. 246). 
The Professor follows up this statement by explaining (p. 261) 
that “the long sound that separates Osteroe from Strombe (must 
have) brimmed with ice, which fiowed in two directions ; north of 
Hordskaale the movement was northerly, while south of the shallow 
part of that sound the ice held on a southerly course.” 
It is unfortunate that thus Professor Geikie and Dr Chambers, 
both of them competent and experienced observers, should have 
given opposite testimonies in this matter. 
The question at issue being, as Professor Geikie states, one of 
