556 
VIEWS OF SCANDINAVIAN AUTHORS. 
To those who have read our descriptions and reasoning in this and the preceding chapter, it is needless to say, 
that the hypothesis of the melting of snows in the high lands of Scandinavia, as applied to the rejection of Sef- 
strom’s theory, is a terrestrial agent, which can have no sort of application to the subaqueous conditions whereon 
we have insisted. We have expressed our belief, that the boulder drift resulted from sudden elevations (perhaps 
many) of the axis of Scandinavia, accompanied by environing lateral depressions of great depth ; — such, for example, 
as placed all northern Germany and the Valdai Hills far beneath the surface of the waters ; — whilst the waves of 
transport generated by each great oscillation, hurled on separate masses of subjacent drift in excentric or radiating 
directions from the main ridge or chief nucleus of disturbance. Touching the remarks of Professor Forchhammer on 
the form of the Swedish rocks, we cannot see how the rugged and vertical sides (fig. d) should have been produced 
by the action of the sea, since be admits, in another part of his letter, that “ the materials of the osars are certainly the 
agents which scratched the surface. Now, the striated sides are those which have been opposed to the line of drift, 
which has invariably polished and worn them, whilst the opposite or rugged sides never exhibit any appearances of 
marine or detrital action. Nor can we admit that the rocky “ skars” so affected, have invariably the same mathe- 
matical form; for, according to our observation in Sweden, the curve of their surface on the worn side is various, 
whilst the rugged face is sometimes a very sloping natural broken talus, as in the drawing below, at other times a 
vertical cliff, as he has drawn it above, particularly in certain islets near Gottenburg, which are now washed bv 
the sea. We still, therefore, retain our opinions as expressed in the text, that the abrasion and striation of the 
surface were caused by the passage of masses of dr ft, moved in excenlric directions with reference to the whole area 
affected. Thus we explain any local deviations from what may be considered the normal or grand lines of drift, 
and even (as must be the case whenever powerful currents have been set in motion by various oscillations of the 
land) how several systems of stria; may occasionally be found to cross each other, as has, indeed, been found to be 
the case at Alten by Siljestrom and at Faxoe by Forchhammer (see Vctens. Handling., Stockholm, 1843, and 
Proc. Roy. Soc. of Copenhagen, 1843). 
By another letter received from Professor Forchhammer, since our preceding sheets were printed, we find that we 
had misinterpreted one of his views (p. 542), and that, like ourselves, when accounting for the production of the 
northern detritus, he believes that periods of violent upheaval and depression have alternated with tranquil epochs 
(see his memoir, Poggendorf’s Ann., 1843). He has further communicated to us some curious facts illustrating the 
present action of icebergs and the transport of blocks, which will be cited in the Appendix. In the meantime we 
may say that our theory differs from his and that of any author who has written upon Scandinavia, in referring 
such phenomena to waves of translation, on whose powers of transporting subjacent heavy masses of loose materials 
we base our chief conclusions respecting the rounded Scandinavian drift, the wearing away and striation of the 
rocks ; whilst the large subangular erratics were, we think, carried by floating icebergs, which in grating along 
the sea-bottom, may have also scratched the rocky surface. 
71 . 
NORTH. _ SOUTH. 
Worn side. A Skiir. 
Ohs. Whilst these pages are passing through the press, a memoir has been read by Mr. A. F. Macintosh (before 
the Geol. Soc. of London), “ On the supposed evidence of glaciers in North Wales,” in which he combats the 
hypothesis of Dr. Buckland (see p. 550), and showing, like ourselves, that the detritus had been accumulated under 
water, endeavours to prove (extending an idea of Mr. Bowman), that nearly all these groovings and striae around 
Snowdon, which had been referred to the action of glaciers, are due to lines of structure in the rocks and atmo- 
spheric agency. We may again allude to this point in the Appendix, now simply stating that the greater number of 
the deviously parallel scratches on the worn surface of the hard crystalline rocks of the north, are, in our opinion, 
clearly mechanical, and cannot be connected with structural conditions. 
