Look at the stones, and you shall observe that all the harder and
finer-grained specimens are well-smoothed and covered with striæ or
scratches, the best marked of which run parallel with the longer axis
of each stone and boulder. These scratches are evidently very similar
to those markings that cover the surface of the underlying solid rock,
and we may feel sure, therefore, that the denuding agent which smoothed
and scratched the solid rocks had also something to do with the stones
and boulders of the clay.
Underneath the stony clay, or _Till_, as it is called, we find here
and there certain old river gravels. We know that these gravels are
river-formations, because not only do they lie at the bottom of the
river-valleys, but the stones, we can see, have been arranged by water
running in one constant direction, and that direction is always _down_
the valley in which the gravels chance to occur. Frequently, however,
there is no trace of such underlying gravels, but the till rests
directly upon the solid rocks.
Now what do all these appearances mean? It is clear that there is no
natural agent in this country engaged in rounding and scratching the
rocks, or in accumulating a stony clay like till. In alpine regions,
however, we know that glaciers, as they slowly creep down their
valleys, grind and polish and scratch the rocks over which they pass,
and that underneath the moving ice one may detect smoothed and striated
stones precisely resembling those that occur in till. Frost in such
alpine regions splits up the rocks of the cliffs and mountain-slopes
that overlook a glacier, and immense masses of angular stones and
débris, thus loosened, roll down and accumulate along the flanks of
the ice-streams. Eventually such accumulations are borne slowly down
the valley upon the back of the glacier, and are dropped at last over
the terminal front of the ice, where they become intermingled with the
stones and rubbish, which are pushed or washed out from underneath the
ice. These heaps and masses of angular débris and stones are called
"moraines," and one can see that in Switzerland the glaciers must at
some time have been much larger, for ancient moraines occur far down
in the low-grounds of that country--the glaciers being now confined
to the uppermost reaches of the deep mountain-valleys. Moreover, we
may note how the mountain-slopes overlooking the present puny glaciers
have been rubbed by ice up to a height of sometimes a thousand feet and
more above the level of the existing ice-streams. Now since the aspect
presented by the glaciated rock-surfaces of Switzerland is exactly
paralleled by the rounded and smoothed rocks of Scotland, there can
be no doubt that the latter have had a similar origin. Again, we find
throughout the low-grounds of Switzerland a deposit of till precisely
resembling that which is so well developed in Teviotdale and the valley
of the Tweed. And as there can be no doubt that the Swiss till has been
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