82 The Loess of the Rhine and the Danube . [January, 
reached and carried up fragmentary shells from the arms of 
the sea they had crossed, the northern drift does not contain 
sea shells or any other marine organism. For thousands of 
square miles, south of the irregular line I have indicated, up 
to and around the Carpathians, the northern drift is spread 
out, and not a trace of marine life— not even a diatom — has 
been recorded from it, whilst at its base, between the Oder 
and the Elbe, fresh-water shells abound. To believe that 
Europe gradually sank down below the level of the sea 
until the latter had its shore line more than 1000 feet up the 
flanks of the mountains, and that it rose again without the 
sea leaving behind it any traces of life excepting fresh-water 
shells, is such an extreme hypothesis, and so contrary to all 
we know respedting the composition of existing sea-bottoms, 
that it is probable that its present acceptance is simply a 
survival from the time when there was no other way of ex- 
plaining the existence of water up to such heights. 
The usual explanation of the fadts of the Glacial period 
is one continued appeal to the hypothesis of great oscilla- 
tions of the earth’s surface at that time. It may well be 
questioned whether geologists have not been too ready to 
call in the aid of these movements. There is much evidence 
to show that vast continental areas were never below the 
sea-level from the close of the Palaeozoic period up to the 
end of the Tertiary period. Yet after this stability of sur- 
face over such an immense period of time no hesitation is 
felt, in the comparatively insignificant Glacial period, of 
sending the surface of the land thousands of feet higher, 
that ice may accumulate on the now low ranges, and thou- 
sands of feet lower, that icebergs may float over the sub- 
merged lands ; and no difficulty is experienced in believing 
that it should finish its wonderful oscillations by regaining 
the level it had before the Glacial period commenced. It 
seems a burlesque on Science that such theories should be 
prevalent amongst our geologists, and if they were not held 
by philosophers they would be ridiculed as unphilosophical. 
Those who advocate the former existence of these oscilla- 
tions of the surface are those who urge that we should not 
call in the aid of any but existing agencies ; yet where do 
they now find a shore-less and a shell-less sea ? Put down 
a dredge anywhere in the ocean within depths of less than 
2000 feet, and in the small quantity of clay, mud, sand, or 
gravel scraped up, it will be scarcely possible to take out a 
tea-cupful that shall not teem with marine organisms ; yet 
we are taught that an immense area in Europe and America 
has been a sea-bottom, and every part of it a sea-beach as 
