SCANDINAVIAN DETRITUS CARRIED OFF EXCENTR1CALLY. 
527 
readily explain why, when melted, the contents of such masses should have been 
carried much further southward by currents into north and south bays, and why 
the interjacent banks should be void of similar sea-borne spoil. 
We were, indeed, peculiarly interested in tracing this northern detritus up such 
ancient bays, to the very edge of the Carpathians and Riesen-Gebirge, which 
mountains must, from their constitution and elevation, have formed the northern 
masses of a southern continent, when the ancient sea covered the low regions of 
Prussia, Poland and Germany. 
We have spoken of this detritus as northern, because the blocks to which we 
previously referred, have, in a general sense, been transported from the Scandina- 
vian mountains to the south. A more extended examination of the whole pheno- 
menon compels us to view it in a broader and different light. On the east shores 
of England, particularly on that of Yorkshire, Norwegian detritus is by no means 
uncommon, and it is there mingled with some of the rocky masses which have 
been shed off' from local centres of eruption in the British Isles upon the west. In 
Denmark the blocks have been derived from north and by east. In most parts of 
Prussia they can be traced to due northerly sources. We no sooner, however, 
arrive opposite the coasts of Finnish Lapland, where the granitic and crystalline 
boundary sweeps round to north-east, than we find the direction of the blocks 
changing accordingly. The very peculiar rocks of Solamenski-kamen, for example, 
near Nijni Novogorod, have been shown to proceed from north-west to south-east, 
whilst at Ust-Sisolsk in the government of Vologda, the Scandinavian boulders 
have had, as nearly as possible, an eastern course. 
In no instance do the Scandinavian blocks advance near to the Ural chain, a 
fact which we have endeavoured to account for by supposing, that large adjacent 
tracts upon the west, as 'well as the mountains themselves, were above the waters 
during the erratic period. We have, indeed, fully explained, that those mountains 
and both their flanks are void of all boulders and far-borne detritus. Though ex- 
hibiting proofs of intense dislocation, the Ural is, therefore, a perfect contrast in 
this respect to the Scandinavian chain. According to our hypothesis of floating 
icebergs, the derivation of the blocks in the one case, and their total absence in 
the other, are perfectly in accordance with natural history conditions. For as in 
Norway and Sweden glaciers now exist, so may they formerly have existed. On 
the other hand, as there is no glacier in the Ural, even up to 70° N. lat. , so ac- 
cording to the rules of the glacialist there never can have been one, since there are 
3 y 2 
