43 
Obituary — E. Billings. 
optical delusiou.” If the boundary-lines of beds 15 and 20 feet 
thick cau be distinguisbed separately, local deflections from the hori- 
zontal even to that amount should be visible too. Nor is the fact 
that they are only “nearly horizontal” wortby of any weight. Their 
dip is about l ü westward. They have been spoken of 1 as “ with 
their strata so little inclined that these can be traced by the eye in 
long horizdntal bars on the side of the steeper declivities.” But 
while holding by what I have affirmed on the subject, I am sensible 
that . Mr. Judd’s objections can be obviated only by an authority equal 
to bis own. 
'Wark-on-Tyne, Nov. 14M. Hugh Miller. 
“THE CLIMATE COXTROVERSY.” 
Sir, — Will you allow me to call the attention of geologists inter- 
ested in this subject to a Statement made by Sir George Nares to 
the Geographical Society. 
He teils us that in the extreme north of Greenland, as well as on 
the opposite side of Smith’s Sound, instead of the land being en- 
veloped in ice like the more Southern parts of Greenland, the glaciers 
do not reach the sea. This Sir George attributes to the snowfall 
being less than the summer sun can dissolve, the snow-bearing 
clouds discharging their contents principally in latitudes further 
south, and the land- ice being made up of undissolved suow. 
Now does not this militate against the possibility of a polar 
ice-cap, as well as against the alleged cumulative tendency of 
snow and ice over any large portion of the polar areas? If with 
the present lower excentricity the aphelion sun of the northern 
summer is sufficient to dissolve the winter snow in latitude 82°, 
would not the perihelion sun of a high exceutricity be proportionately 
more effective, instead, as Mr. Croll coutends, of being insufficient 
to prevent the accumulation of snow ? Daring the augmented cold 
of the Glacial period would not the region of excessive snowfall 
have been pushed down to about lat. 55° in Europe (where we find 
evidences of the enveloping land-ice), and the chief part of Green- 
land, instead of, as now, being enveloped in ice, have been in the ice- 
free condition of the land about Smith’s Sound ? And since the cold 
of that region, notwithstanding this absence of land-ice, was found to 
be more intense than that of latitudes where the ice envelopes the land, 
may not the cold of the Glacial period have been proportionately more 
intense without any greater snow accumulation than now prevails ? 
Searles Y. Wood, Jun. 
OBITIJABY. 
ELKANAH BILLINGS, F.G.S. 
BORN 1820, DLBD 1876. AGED 56 YEARS. 
The late Mr. Billings was born in the Township of Gloucester, 
near Ottawa, Ontario, on the 5th of May, 1820. His family came 
originally from Wales, and settled in the New England States, but 
subsequently removed to Canada. Mr. Billings was educated partly 
1 Prof. Geikie’s Scenery of Scotland, p. 211. 
