And the existence of a warm condition of climate during the Old Red Sandstone period is evidenced by the fossiliferous limestones of England, Russia, and America. On the banks of the Athabasca River, Rupert-Land, Sir John Richardson found beds of limestone containing _Producti_, _Spiriferi_, an _Orthis_ resembling _O. resupinata_, _Terebratula reticularis_,[163] and a _Pleurotomaria_, which, in the opinion of the late Dr. Woodward, who examined the specimens, are characteristic of Devonian rocks of Devonshire. CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. _France._—It is now a good many years since Mr. Godwin-Austen directed attention to what he considered evidence of ice-action during the coal period. This geologist found in the carboniferous strata of France large angular blocks which he could not account for without inferring the former action of ice. “Whether from local elevation,” he says, “or from climatic conditions, there are certain appearances over the whole which imply that at one time the temperature must have been very low, as glacier-action can alone account for the presence of the large angular blocks which occur in the lowest detrital beds of many of the southern coal-basins.”[164] _Scotland._—In Scotland great beds of conglomerate are met with in various parts, which are now considered by Professor Geikie, Mr. James Geikie, and other officers of the Geological Survey who have had opportunities of examining them, to be of glacial origin. “They are,” says Mr. James Geikie, “quite unstratified, and the stones often show that peculiar blunted form which is so characteristic of glacial work.”[165] Many of the stones found by Professor Geikie, several of which I have had an opportunity of seeing, are well striated. In 1851 Professor Haughton brought forward at the Geological Society of Dublin, a case of angular fragments of granite occurring in the carboniferous limestone of the county of Dublin; and he explained the phenomena by the supposition of the transporting power of ice. _North America._—In one of the North American coal-fields Professor Newberry found a boulder of quartzite 17 inches by 12 inches, imbedded in a seam of coal. Similar facts have also been recorded both in the United States, and in Nova Scotia. Professor Dawson describes what he calls a gigantic esker of Carboniferous age, on the outside of which large travelled boulders were deposited, probably by drift-ice; while in the swamps within, the coal flora flourished.[166]