However, the theory of deluges, whether of ocean or land streams, did not hold the field unopposed. In 1823, Granger,[41] an observer whose contributions to science total only six pages, speaks of the striæ on the shore of Lake Erie as “having been formed by the powerful and continued attrition of some hard body.... To me, it does not seem possible that water under any circumstances, could have effected it. The flutings in width, depth, and direction, are as regular as if they had been cut out by a grooving plane. This, running water could not effect, nor could its operation have produced that glassy smoothness, which, in many parts, it still retains.” Hayes and also Conrad expressed similar views in the Journal 16 years later. The idea that ice was in some way concerned with the transportation of drift has had a curious history. The first unequivocal statement, based on reading and keen observation, was made in the Journal by Dobson in 1826:[42] “I have had occasion to dig up a great number of bowlders, of red sandstone, and of the conglomerate kind, in erecting a cotton manufactory; and it was not uncommon to find them worn smooth on the under side, as if done by their having been dragged over rocks and gravelly earth, in one steady position. On examination, they exhibit scratches and furrows on the abraded part; and if among the minerals composing the rock, there happened to be pebbles of feldspar, or quartz, (which was not uncommon,) they usually appeared not to be worn so much as the rest of the stone, preserving their more tender parts in a ridge, extending some inches. When several of these pebbles happen to be in one block, the preserved ridges were on the same side of the pebbles, so that it is easy to determine which part of the stone moved forward, in the act of wearing. These bowlders are found, not only on the surface, but I have discovered them a number of feet deep, in the earth, in the hard compound of clay, sand, and gravel.... I think we cannot account for these appearances, unless we call in the aid of ice along with water, and that they have been worn by being suspended and carried in ice, over rocks and earth, under water.” In Dobson’s day the hypothesis of “gigantic floods,” “debacles,” “resistless world-wide currents,” was so firmly entrenched that the voice of the observant layman found no hearers, and a letter from Dobson to Hitchcock written in 1837 and containing additional evidence and argument remained unpublished until Murchison, in 1842,[43] paid his respects to the remarkable work of a remarkable man.[44]