PART 4.] 
Theobald: Pleistocene deposits of the Northern Punjab. 
237 
Vol. XLVI, Part 11, lb77, Campbell on Himalayan glaciation). I shall not 
discuss Mr. Campbell’s brochure at length, simply because a man who professes 
to refute the views of another, which his every word proves him not to have 
comprehended, cannot be profitably argued with, but some [of Mr. Campbell’s 
arguments, being of a general nature and the joint proj-icrty and stock-in-trade 
of all anti-glacial geologists, may bo bore noticed. It may be hero mentioned 
that as ilr. Campbell Las not realised the conditions which 1 believe really ob¬ 
tained, many of the arguments adduced ai’e really and truly beside the question; 
but “ n’importe.”' 
Arguments why glaciers never descended, as ascribed by me, to within 2,000 
or 3,000 feet of the sea in Northern India 
\ 
I. —The course of these suppositive glaciers lies along V-shaped valleys, which 
indicate aqueous, not glacial, erosion. 
Undoubtedly, as the remarks previously made show, the |glaciers descended 
on top of an enormous acamuulaiion of gravels filling up the old valleys of a V 
shape. These gravels were only partly cut down and cleared away by the glaciens; 
and partly to this, and partly to the post-glacial action of streams, the contour s 
of the ground are all of the V kind. Argument No. I is consequently worthless. 
II. —No glacial markings are found on rocks in situ, as must have been the 
case had each river bed given passage to a glacier, as asserted. 
To this I remark, that search for such marks seems generally to have been 
made by Mr. Campbell in places rvhere, if my theory is correct, no glacier 
ever descended, that is, in contact with the jrresent rock surface; and that the 
ordinary roads leading up our largo river valleys lie, a.s a matter of fact, below 
the level, where ice action -would have left its mark. Then, again, so much of the 
ground in question is made up of rock unfitted for, or incapable of, retaining 
‘ ice markings and wdien the rock is fitted, it forms crags above the paths now 
used, accessible to few living things, save the wild goat and his natural enemy, 
the human hunter. This argument is therefore no better than the last. 
III. —Absence of striated blocks within the area asserted to have ^been 
traversed by glaciers. 
To this I reply that the rock which has furnished the largest and most 
numerous ‘ erratics ’ (gi’anitoid gneiss) is wholly unfitted for the retention of any 
' Mr. Campbell’s observation was very far from being so preposterous as Mr. Theob.ild would 
make out. Notwithstanding the definitions quoted above—a general meaning for which (and it 
would be ridiculous to attach a rigorous meaning to such definitions, where the conditious neces¬ 
sarily admit of exceptions) was sufficiently obvious, in the prevailing erosion of the river gorges 
below the level of the old gravels—it was a perfectly fair, or even inevitable, inference that any 
rock-surface supporting the old gravels was one on which, according to Mr. Theobald, a gUcier 
had travelled. Mr. Campbell found such a surface freshly exposed, but without any trace of the 
markings required by such conditions. There might remain a dispute about the identity of tba 
gravels at that spot, but this would altogether change the venue of the case. It would seem that 
Mr. Theobald did not at the time comjireheud his own brochure otherwise than Mr. Campbell j 
for in a subsequent notice (llecoi-ds X, p. 140) of the opinion that bad been passed upon the 
supposed glaciers of the Kangra valley, he makes no allusion to the rejoinder wliich be now 
(as suggested by his recent observations) urges with such ultra ferocious vigoiir—a Iriumphant 
style which by no means helps to impart the conviction it ostensibly implies.—H. B. M. 
C ' 
