Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

i0 THE DRIFT.

CHAPTER III. THE ACTION OF WAVES.

WueEn men began, for the first time, to study the drift deposits, they believed that they found in them the results of the Noachic Deluge ; and hence the Drift was called the Diluvium, and the period of time in which it was laid down was entitled the Diluvial age.

It was supposed that—

“Somehow and somewhere in the far north a series of gigantic waves was mysteriously propagated. These waves were supposed to have precipitated themselves upon the land, and then swept madly over mountain and valley alike, carrying along with them a mighty burden of rocks and stones and rubbish. Such deluges were called ‘ waves of translation.’ ” *

There were many difficulties about this theory :

In the first place, there was no cause assigned for these waves, which must have been great enough to have Swept over the tops of high mountains, for the evidences of the Drift age are found three thousand feet above the Baltic, four thousand feet high in the Grampians of Scotland, and six thousand feet high in New England.

In the next place, if this deposit had been swept up from or by the sea, it would contain marks of its origin. The shells of the sea, the bones of fish, the remains of seals and whales, would have been taken up by these great deluges, and carried over the land, and have re-

* “The Great Ice Age,” p. 26, ge, P