The limits reached by the inland-ice during its greatest extension are
becoming more and more clearly defined, although its southern margin
will probably never be so accurately determined as that of the latest
epoch of general glaciation. The reasons for this are obvious. When
the inland-ice flowed south to the Harz and the hills of Saxony it
formed no great terminal moraines. Doubtless many erratics and much
rock-rubbish were showered upon the surface of the ice from the higher
mountains of Scandinavia, but owing to the fanning-out of the ice on
its southward march, such superficial débris was necessarily spread
over a constantly-widening area. It may well be doubted, therefore,
whether it ever reached the terminal front of the ice-sheet in
sufficient bulk to form conspicuous moraines. It seems most probable
that the terminal moraines of the great inland-ice would consist of
low banks of boulder-clay and aqueous materials-the latter, perhaps,
strongly predominating, and containing here and there larger and
smaller angular erratics which had travelled on the surface of the
ice. However that may be, it is certain that the whole region in
question has been considerably modified by subsequent denudation, and
to a large extent is now concealed under deposits belonging to later
stages of the Pleistocene period. The extreme limits reached by the ice
are determined rather by the occasional presence of rock-striæ and
_roches moutonnées_, of boulder-clay and northern erratics, than by
recognisable terminal moraines. The southern limits reached by the old
inland-ice appear in this way to have been tolerably well ascertained
over a considerable portion of central Europe. Some years ago I
published a small sketch-map[AF] showing the extent of surface formerly
covered by ice. On this map I did not venture to draw the southern
margin of the ice-sheet in Belgium further south than Antwerp, where
northern erratics were known to occur, but the more recent researches
of Belgian geologists show that the ice probably flowed south for some
little distance beyond Brussels.[AG] Here and there in other parts of
the Continent the southern limits reached by the northern drift have
also been more accurately determined, but, so far as I know, none of
these later observations involves any serious modification of the
sketch-map referred to.
[AF] _Prehistoric Europe_, 1881.
[AG] See a paper by M. E. Delvaux: _Ann. de la. Soc. géol. de Belg._,
t. xiii. p. 158.
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