38 
THE PARALLEL ROADS OF 
where stranded along the shore or dropped to 
the sea-bottom. Large boulders are frequently 
left by the ice along the New England coast, 
and we shall trace them hereafter among the 
sand-dunes of Cape Cod. But before it can 
be admitted that the drift-phenomena, and the 
polished and engraved surfaces with which 
they are everywhere intimately associated, are 
owing to floating ice or icebergs, it must be 
shown that all these appearances have been 
produced by some agency moving from the 
sea-board towards the land, and extending up 
to the very summits of the mountains, or else 
that all the countries exhibiting glacial phe¬ 
nomena have been sunk below the ocean to 
the greatest height at which glacier-marks are 
found, and have since gradually emerged to 
their present level. Now, though geologists 
are lavish of immersions when something is to 
be accounted for which they cannot otherwise 
explain, and a fresh baptism of old Mother 
Earth is made to wash away many obstacles 
to scientific theories, yet the common-sense of 
the world will hardly admit the latter assump¬ 
tion without positive proof; and all the evi- 
ednce of the kind we have, at the period under 
