1S2 The American Geologi8t September, 1893 
dreds of miles of level country, its capacity to mount long 
slopes .-iikI the excavating and denuding power that has been 
attributed t<» it. In the following pages I claim to have shown 
that a wide-spread Hood is a necessary postulate if the geolog- 
ical facts are to be duly explained." 
The first three chapters of the work are devoted to a full 
examination of the theories of the "Champions of Water" as 
the author calls those early geologists who between 1711) and 
1S40 maintained that the Drift with its erratic blocks was 
scattered over the northern lands by a mighty Hood of water. 
In the infancy of the science tin- enormous difficulties that lay 
in the way of the maintenance of this theory were unknown 
or undervalued or explained away by the interpolation of 
miracles. 
The fourth chapter takes up the theory of iceberg-action as 
the transporting agent and sketches briefly the work of vari- 
ous writers from 1704 to 1843. The abandonment of the for- 
mer view and the adoption of this was brought about by the 
numerous observations of striated and polished rock-surfaces 
and the study of the distribution of erratic blocks. 
In chapter V the "Champions of the Glaciers" receive at- 
tention, beginning with Playfair in 1802 and ending with Max 
Braun in 1843. A striking extract from the "Illustrations " 
of the former writer is given as the earliest published attribu- 
tion of the dispersal of erratics to glacial transportation. It 
is as follows: "For the removal of large masses of rock the 
most powerful agent which Nature employs is without doubt 
the Glacier." The gradual advance of this theory and the re- 
treat and disappearance of the two others are well sketched, 
and the conversion of the leading glacialists of the time from 
the iceberg to the glacier school of geology is told in an inter- 
esting manner. The author vividly describes the memorable 
ISth of November, 1840, when Dean Auckland, himself the au- 
thor of the "Reliquise Diluvianse" read his recantation and 
adopted the views of Agassiz and his comrades anil when 
Murchison in reply sneeringly asked if he would make High- 
gate Hill the seat of a glacier and if Hyde Park and Bel grave 
square would be within the scope of its action. 
The sixth chapter is entitled "The Growth and Culmination 
of the Glacial Nightmare." With much interesting matter 
