Davis.] 
336 
[January 18, 
caused by their upheaval ; that the size of the lakes corresponds 
to the drainage basins of the several floods, a relation which 
could not exist if the lakes were produced by local subsidence ; 
and that while many of the lakes follow the slope of the plain, as 
the flood ran, Neuchatel and Bienne are parallel to the Jura because 
there the flood was turned by these mountains. 1 This is entirely 
inadmissible ; water having no rigidity or tenacity can only cut a 
valley with continuous slope. Pot-holes, pools below water-falls 
and small hollows in river channels need hardly be considered 
exceptions to this rule. 
B. 1. Basins of Glacial Erosion. It is certainly possible for 
ciers to cut out rock-basins, but the number and size of the basins 
so excavated have been greatly exaggerated. Extreme views have 
been taken on this subject : on one side by those ardent glacialists 
who ascribe the greater number of lake basins and deep valleys of 
northern countries to ice erosion ; on the other by those conser- 
vatives who underrate the power of an agent so long in existence, 
so powerful from its weight, so irresistible in its motion, and 
so effective as a means of comminution and transportation as 
was the wonderful sheet of ice that once covered so large an area 
about the North Atlantic. 
The theory of the glacial origin of lakes was first prcrposed by 
Hind in 1855, 2 but did not attain prominence until advocated in 
a more general way by Ramsay in 1859 and especially in 1862. 3 
1 Deutung der Alpen-Seen in Gebirgsbau der Alpen, 1865, 138. Ramsay used similar 
arguments for a glacial origin of these lakes. J. W. Dawson considers our great lakes 
cut out by cold, deep ocean currents during a period of northern submergence. 
Canad. Nat., I, 1864, 218. 
2 H. Y. Hind, On the Origin of the Basins of the Great Lakes. Canadian Institute, 
Toronto, 1855. I do not know whether this was published or only read: it is referred 
to by Hind himself in the Geol. Soc. Journ., xx, 1864, 126, 130. See also his Report on 
the Assiniboine and Saskatch. Expl. Exped. Toronto, 1859, 122. 
3 Ramsay’s papers are — The Old Glaciers of Switzerland and North Wales, in Peaks, 
Passes and Glaciers, London, 1859, 466. 
On the Glacial Origin of Certain Lakes in Switzerland, etc. Geol. Soc. Journ., xviii, 
1862, 185-203, and Amer. Journ. Sci., xxxv, 1863, 324. 
The Excavation of the Valley of the Alps, Phil. Mag., xxiv, 1862, 377-380. 
On the Erosion of Valleys and Lakes (in reply to Murchison), Philos. Mag., xxvm, 
1864, 293-311. 
Sir Charles Lyell and the Glacial Theory of Lake Basins, id., xxix, 1865, 285-298. 
The Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain, London, 1872, 
