428 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
flowing glacier which occupied the plain had a surface nearly equal to that 
of the feeding glacier which was situated in the mountains. By means of 
several tables M. Favre showed the height attained by these glaciers, their 
thickness, the elope of their upper surface, &c., at various points in the 
Alps, the Jura, and Swabia, and deduced as the result of the comparison of 
these numbers : — 1. That the Rhone glacier passed over several of the chains 
of the Jura, and that the ice covering these, far from being an obstacle to 
the extension of the glaciers of the Alps, actually reinforced them, and 
served them as relays , the glaciers of the Jura having carried far on the 
Alpine erratic blocks. 2. That the slopes of the upper surface were variable, 
and were null, or nearly so, over considerable spaces. 
On the Ice Age in Great Britain . — In a paper published in the “ Proceedings 
of the Edinburgh Geological Society ” Mr. Ralph Richardson gives the 
facts with regard to the shallow depths of ocean between Great Britain and 
Iceland and Greenland on one side and over the German Ocean on the other, 
and presents reasons for believing that there was dry land over the region in 
the glacial era ; that the glaciers of Great Britain came over this emerged 
land from the north and west ; and that the cold of the glacial era was due 
in part at least to the closing thus of the Arctic, and excluding thereby the 
Gulf Stream. The facts appear to sustain the conclusions. The depth 
between Britain and Iceland mostly does not exceed 100 fathoms, and no- 
where exceeds 1,000 ; and one tract of sea extending in a straight line from 
the eastern coast of Greenland via Iceland and Faroe to Scotland does not 
exceed 500 fathoms. The depth of the sea in the English Channel is only 
about 20 fathoms, and the average depth of the North Sea or German 
Ocean is not over 40 fathoms, or 240 feet. The depth between Britain and 
Greenland is small compared with the average depth of the Atlantic. The 
author closes with the conclusion, that one of the oscillations of level, such 
as have often occurred over the earth’s surface, had the effect to “ unite 
Britain and Northern Europe with Greenland and the Arctic regions; ” “to 
give the polar ice-fields access to Europe ; ” u to divert the course of the 
Gulf stream and free North-western Europe from its influence ; and, in con- 
junction probably with some diminution in the influence of the sun, to pro- 
duce a glacial epoch.” 
Ice and Ice-work in Newfoundland . — In a paper on this subject in the 
“ Geological Magazine,” Aug. 1876, Mr. J. Milne gives the following as 
the conclusion to be drawn from a series of observations on the subject : — 
“If Newfoundland has been steadily rising during past ages, as it now 
appears to have done at no very remote geological period, it may have been 
beneath the surface of the ocean. During the period when it was under- 
going elevation, no doubt a considerable amount of debris and boulders 
were dropped by icebergs over its surface ; when the Laurentian backbone, 
which would be the first land to emerge, reached the surface, it formed a 
barrier for the coast-ice which would carry its load of boulders and strew 
them with those of the bergs. This latter might to some degree have been 
influential in giving a definite character to the rising area. After the final 
emergence, the climate of Newfoundland might still have been a cold one, 
and the same highlands which gave birth to the coast-ice, probably next 
gave birth to glaciers which scooped and hollowed out a great portion of 
