i879*J Moving Rooks. 611 
of last year, but only a day or two before he left the woods, 
so he had not time to make any investigation into the 
subjetft. A lake of considerable extent, but shallow, was 
full of great masses of rock. “ Many of these masses,” 
observes Lord Dunraven, “ appear to have travelled right 
out of the lake, and are now high and dry, some 15 yards 
above the margin of the water. They have ploughed deep 
and regularly defined channels for themselves. You may 
see them of all sizes, from blocks of, say, roughly speaking, 
6 or 8 feet in diameter, down to stones which a man could 
lift. Moreover, you find them in various stages of progress, 
some a hundred yards or more from shore and apparently 
just beginning to move ; others half-way to their destina- 
tion ; and others again, as I have said, high and dry above 
the water. In all cases there is a distinct groove or furrow 
which the rock has clearly ploughed for itself. I noticed 
one particularly good specimen, an enormous block which 
lay some yards above high-water mark. The earth and 
stones were heaped up in front of it to a height of 3 or 
4 feet. There was a deep furrow, the exadt breadth of the 
block, leading down diredtly from it into the lake, and ex- 
tending till it was hidden from my sight by the depth of the 
water. Loose stones and pebbles were piled up on each 
side of this groove in a regular clearly defined line. I 
thought at first that from some cause or other the smaller 
stones, pebbles, and sand had been dragged down from above, 
and consequently had piled themselves up in front of all the 
large rocks too heavy to be moved, and had left a vacant 
space or furrow behind the rocks. But if that had been the 
case the drift of moving material would of course have 
joined together again in the space of a few yards behind the 
fixed rocks. On the contrary, these grooves or furrows re- 
mained the same width throughout their entire length, and 
have, I think, undoubtedly been caused by the rock forcing 
its way up through the loose shingle and stones which com- 
pose the bed of the lake. What power has set these rocks 
in motion it is difficult to decide. The action of ice is the 
only thing that might explain it ;«but how ice could exert 
itself in that special manner, and why, if ice is the cause of 
it, it does not manifest that tendency in every lake in every 
part of the world, I do not pretend to comprehend.” 
