V.—Åsar, Esker, or Kaims

Extract

As I have paid some attention to the Eskers of Ireland, perhaps I may be allowed to make a few notes on the papers of Mr. F. J. Jamieson recently read before the Geological Society of London, and the letter of M. Jespersen that appeared in the Geol. Mag. for December, 1874. These observers put forward the theory (if I understand them rightly) that these peouliar ridges of shingle, gravel, and sand may be in part glacial, they having been accumulated as marginal fringes to the different stages of the ice-cap that at one time covered the northern portion of the Continent of Europe, as it intermittingly retreated. This suggestion seems worthy of consideration, as possibly, if the ice-cap had an intermittent retrogression, there would be fringes or ridges of shingle, gravel, and sand marking each rest, formed of the detritus from each successive portion of the ice that disappeared; but such accumulations should be at different altitudes, and being carried by water off the ice, and deposited successively at its edge, should be stratified outwards,—or if the margin was retreating, they would be jumbled together.