295 
Prof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 
present position of the wliole Finnish archipelago. As they rose 
still liigher, they entered upon the third stage in which I saw them, 
representing, in miniature, a small country where part of the land 
has been raised high above the action of ice, whilst the remainder 
yet lies within its influence. In such a case as this we have a small 
island formed by the rise of two small rocks. Why can we not then 
go further and picture to ourselves the formation of many islands 
which, as they emerge from their watei'y bed, unite to form countries 
marked and moulded like the nuclei from which they spring ? It 
is certainly not a great Stretch of the imagination. 
All geologists grant that oscillations of land and water have taken 
place, and this together with the present or such slightly modified 
climatal conditions as would result from these changes is all that is 
asked. If it were conceded that through some such cause as a polar 
extension of land in the Eastern Hemisphere, the formation of a cold 
current travelling towards the south, or the cutting off of the Gulf 
Stream travelling towards the north, we might then reasonably ex- 
pect to have a climate in Europe not unlike that of corresponding 
latitudes in America, and the effects of coast ice might be expected 
at least so far south as the middle of France ; nay more, if Europe 
had been a rising area during such periods, the greater part of its 
surface would have been gradually subject to such an action. 
Commencing with Belgium and Holland, and travelling eastward 
over Denmark, North Germany, Poland, and as far east as Novgorod 
in Eussia, then north to the White Sea, and west over Scandinavia, 
excepting its high central portions, there is an area which has been 
subject to oscillation during late geological times ; and if, during these 
times, such climatal conditions existed in Europe as now exist in 
America, I think we might in many places look successfully for the 
action of old coast-ice upon old coast-lines. 
Of course many objections may be raised to such a view as this, 
but there will be more still to matters of detail in the production 
of certain observed phenomena by the agent which we suppose to be 
here employed, rather tlian to the weightier objections which are 
raised as to the ways and means of the production of the agent 
itself invoked by glacialists. We all know into how much 
difficulty, uncertainty, and speculation we find ourselves involved 
when we endeavour to conceive the manner of production and 
method of action of that immense glacier which by some is 
supposed to have covered Northern Europe. Granted oscil- 
lation of land, and a climate not more intense than that of North 
America, and all tliose astronomical and physical questions as to 
what gave birth to the heat and cold necessary for the production of 
huge Continental glaciers, together with much speculation, contro- 
versy, and other products of the imagination, are done away with. 
Appearances similar to those which I have described as having been 
seen along the coast of Finland, I have also seen along nearly 4000 
miles of coast in Labrador and Newfoundland. In many places the 
rocks are striated and often worn and smoothed. This latter effect 
more especially has been recoröed by Lyell, Campbell, Packard, and 
