Man and the Glacial Period

by G. Frederick Wright

“The peak of Snowdon is 3,570 feet above sea-level, and Arenig Mawr, 2,817 feet high, is eighteen miles to the eastward, and a broad, deep valley with unobstructed access to Cardigan Bay intervenes; so, if any ice from the central mass made its way over the Snowdonian range, it performed a much more surprising feat than that involved in the ascent of Moel Tryfaen from the westward.

“The profile shows in diagrammatic form the probable relations of the foreign to the native ice at the time when the Moel Tryfaen deposits were laid down.

“From what has been said regarding the great glaciers, it would seem that ice advanced upon the land from the seaward in several parts of the coast of England, Wales, and the Isle of Man. Now, it is in precisely those parts of the country, and those alone, that the remains of marine animals occur in the glacial deposits. If the dispersal of the shells found in the drift had been effected by the means I have suggested, it would follow, as an inevitable consequence, that wherever shells occur there should also be boulders which have been brought from beyond the sea. This I find to be the case, and in two instances the discovery of shells was preliminary to the extension of the boundaries of the known distribution of boulders of trans-marine origin.

“The officers of the Geological Survey some years ago observed the occurrence of ‘obscure fragments of marine shells’ in a deposit at Whalley, Lancashire, in which they could find only local rocks. One case such as this would be fatal to the theory of the remanié origin of the shells, but on visiting the section with Mr. W. A. Downham, I found, amongst the very few stones which occurred in the shell-bearing sand at the spot indicated, two well-marked examples of Cumbrian volcanic rocks, and, at a little distance, large boulders of Scottish granites.

“The second case is more striking. The announcement was made that shells had been found on a hill called Gloppa near Oswestry, in Shropshire, and, as it lay about five miles to the westward of Mackintosh’s boundary of the Irish Sea Glacier, and therefore well within the area of exclusively Welsh boulders, it furnished an excellent opportunity of putting the theory to the test. An examination of the boulders associated with the shells showed that the whole suite of Galloway and Cumbrian erratics such as belong to the Irish Sea Glacier were present in great abundance. Not only this, but in the midst of the series of shell-bearing gravels I observed a thin lenticular bed of greenish clay, which upon examination was found to be crowded with well-scratched specimens of Welsh rocks; but neither a morsel of shell nor a single pebble of a foreign rock could be found, either by a careful examination in the field or by washing the clay at home, and examining with a lens the sand and stones separated out.

“The fact that predictions such as these have been verified affords a very striking corroboration of the theory put forward; and, though shells cannot be found in every deposit in which they might, ex hypothesi, be found, yet the strict limitation of them to situations which conform to those assigned upon theoretical grounds cannot be ascribed to mere coincidence. If the land had ever been submerged during any part of the Glacial epoch to a depth of 1,400 feet, it is inconceivable that clear and indisputable evidence should not be found in abundance in the sheltered valleys of the Lake District and Wales, which would have been deep, quiet fiords, in which vast colonies of marine creatures would have found harbour, as they do in the deep lochs of Scotland to-day.

“It has been urged, in explanation of this absence of marine remains in the great hill-centres, that the ‘second glaciation’ might have destroyed them; but to do this would require that the ice should make a clean and complete sweep of all the loose deposits both in the hollows of the valleys and on the hill-sides, and further that it should destroy all the shells and all the foreign stones which floated in during the submergence. At the same time we should have to suppose that the drift which lay in the paths of the great glaciers was not subjected to any interference whatever. But, assuming that these difficulties were explained, there would still remain the fact that the valleys which have never been glaciated—as, for example, those of Derbyshire—show no signs whatever of any marine deposits, nor of marine action in any form whatever.

“The sea leaves other traces also, besides shells, of its presence in districts that have really been submerged, yet there are no signs whatever to be found of them in all England, except the post-glacial raised beaches. Furthermore, in all the area occupied by glacial deposits there are no true sea-beaches, no cliffs nor sea-worn caves, no barnacle-encrusted rocks, nor rocks bored by Pholas or Saxicava. Are we to believe that these never existed; or that, having existed, they have been obliterated by subsequent denudations? To make good the former proposition, it would be necessary as a preliminary to show that the movement of subsidence and re-elevation was so rapid, and the interval between so brief, that no time was allowed for any marine erosion to take place. If this were so, it would be the most stupendous catastrophe of which we have any geological record; but we are not left in doubt regarding the duration of the submerged condition, for the occurrence of forty feet of gravel upon the summits of the hills indicates plainly that, if they were accumulated by the sea, the land must have stood at that level for a very long period, amply sufficient for the formation of a well-marked coast-line.

“The alternative proposition, that post-glacial denudation had removed the traces of subsidence, is equally at variance with the evidence. Post-glacial denudation has left kames and drumlins, and all the other forms of glacial deposits, in almost perfect integrity; the small kettle-holes are not yet filled up; and it is therefore quite out of the question that the far more enduring features, such as sea-cliffs, shore platforms, and beaches, should have been destroyed.

“The only reasonable conclusion is, that these evidences of marine action never existed, because the land in glacial times was never depressed below its present level. If the level were different at all (as I think may have been the case on the western side of England), it was higher, and not lower.