552 
STRIATION OF ROCKS GENERALLY DUE TO SUBAQUEOUS ACTION. 
live in the adjacent seas. And though several of the latter are Arctic species, no 
glaciers occur within several hundred miles of the seas in which they live. Again, 
the researches of Prof. E. Forbes in the iEgean, and of Prof. Loven in the North Sea 
have taught us, that the more or less Arctic character of shells essentially depends 
upon the depth of the submarine zone at which the animals lived. Who then will 
assert, in opposition to such facts and the opinion of such authorities, that many 
of the so-called raised beaches in Sweden, Norway and England, are not, in truth, 
sea-bottoms, which, under whatever difference of latitude they may have been accu- 
mulated, necessarily bear more or less an Arctic character ? Suppose, for example, a 
mutation in the present configuration of the Mediterranean, not so great as many 
which have affected our continents, and that its deepest soundings were raised up 
into hills, leaving hanks of shells which, from the depths at which they lived, would 
necessarily have an Arctic character ; and further imagine that this raised sea-bot- 
tom was absolutely contiguous to certain rocks of Greece 1 , which have lately been 
described as having the same polish and striae as our northern examples, might it 
not be argued, that because certain shells were present, glaciers and an Arctic cli- 
mate once prevailed there ? Wild as such reasoning would now appear, it might 
really have been maintained, had not the discoveries of Professor E. Forbes thrown 
a new light upon the subject and entirely prevented its application. At present, 
therefore, we presume that no one, on account of the parallel striation and polish 
of her crystalline limestone, is prepared to allow that the flanks of Parnassus have 
been subjected to the action of glaciers. Even there, indeed, we have the sub- 
stitute for the glacier and its reliquiae in mounds of gravel, debris and boulders 
(resembling in form both longitudinal and transverse moraines), which have been 
shed off from the mountain side. 
The abettors of the general application of the glacier theory to every region 
where the “ roches moutonnees” of De Saussure, or striae similar to those of the 
Alps, are visible, failing necessarily in their efforts to show how these phaenomena 
can have been produced by ice, in countries where the first elements in that theory 
are wanting, must, we contend, limit their inductions to centres of great eleva- 
tion, and consequently of great cold. To support this view we need not travel to 
exceptional cases in Greece : even the flat regions of Belgium and northern France 
frequently expose polished and striated surfaces of the palaeozoic limestones, where 
'• See Mr. Trevelyan’s account of the scratched and polished surfaces of Mount Parnassus in Greece. 
Proc. Geol. Soc. of London, vol. iv. p. 203. 
