GLACIAL PHENOMENA IN MAINE. 
105 
across whole continents, over open, level plains 
as well as along enclosed valleys, still meets 
with many opponents, the stanchest of whom 
stand high as geological authorities. If not 
openly said, it is whispered, that, after all, this 
great ice-period is a mere fancy, worthy at 
best of a place among the tales of the Arabian 
Nights; that no moraines have ever been 
noticed in North America; and that what has 
been ascribed to the agency of terrestrial gla¬ 
ciers, upon this continent, is simply the work 
of icebergs stranding against a coast which 
has subsequently been raised, so that the 
boulders first deposited by the floating ice 
along the shores now lie inland at a great 
distance from the sea. According to this 
suggestion all the erratic phenomena in North 
America, the extensive sheets of drift, the 
continuous and prominent ridges of drift 
materials, the larger scattered boulders, the 
scratched, polished, and grooved surfaces, are 
the work of floating ice, poured forth, then as 
now, from the Arctic regions. If this be so, 
we should expect to find all these so-called 
traces of glacial action running from the coast 
inward. 
