EXTINCT GLACIERS IN WALES.

The considerable amount of vertical movement in opposite directions, which was suggested in the last chapter, as affording the most probable explanation of the position of some of the stratified and fossiliferous drifts of Scotland, formed since the commencement of the glacial period, will appear less startling if it can be shown that independent observations lead us to infer that a geographical revolution of still greater magnitude accompanied the successive phases of glaciation through which the Welsh mountains have passed.

That Wales was once an independent centre of the dispersion of erratic blocks has long been acknowledged. Dr. Buckland published in 1842 his reasons for believing that the Snowdonian mountains in Caernarvonshire were formerly covered with glaciers, which radiated from the central heights through the seven principal valleys of that chain, where striae and flutings are seen on the polished rocks directed towards as many different points of the compass. He also described the "moraines" of the ancient glaciers, and the rounded masses of polished rock, called in Switzerland "roches moutonnees." His views respecting the old extinct glaciers of North Wales were subsequently confirmed by Mr. Darwin, who attributed the transport of many of the larger erratic blocks to floating ice. Much of the Welsh glacial drift had already been shown by Mr. Trimmer to have had a submarine origin, and Mr. Darwin maintained that when the land rose again to nearly its present height, glaciers filled the valleys, and "swept them clean of all the rubbish left by the sea."*

     (* "Philosophical Magazine" series 3 volume 21 page 180.)

Professor Ramsay, in a paper read to the Geological Society in 1851, and in a later work on the glaciation of North Wales, described three successive glacial periods, during the first of which the land was much higher than it now is, and the quantity of ice excessive; secondly, a period of submergence when the land was 2300 feet lower than at present, and when the higher mountain tops only stood out of the sea as a cluster of low islands, which nevertheless were covered with snow; and lastly, a third period when the marine boulder drift formed in the middle period was ploughed out of the larger valleys by a second set of glaciers, smaller than those of the first period. This last stage of glaciation may have coincided with that of the parallel roads of Glen Roy, spoken of in the last chapter. In Wales it was certainly preceded by submergence, and the rocks had been exposed to glacial polishing and friction before they sank.

Fortunately the evidence of the sojourn of the Welsh mountains beneath the waters of the sea is not deficient, as in Scotland, in that complete demonstration which the presence of marine shells affords. The late Mr. Trimmer discovered such shells on Moel Tryfan, in North Wales, in drift elevated more than 1300 feet above the level of the sea. It appears from his observations, and those of the late Edward Forbes, corroborated by others of Professor Ramsay and Mr. Prestwich, that about twelve species of shells, including Fusus bamfius, F. antiquus, Venus striatula (Forbes and Hanley), have been met with at heights of between 1000 and 1400 feet, in drift, reposing on a surface of rock which had been previously exposed to glacial friction and striation.*

     (* Ramsay, "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society"
     volume 8 1852 page 372.)

The shells, as a whole, are those of the glacial period, and not of the Norwich Crag. Two localities of these shells in Wales, in addition to that first pointed out by Mr. Trimmer, have since been observed by Professor Ramsay, who, however, is of opinion that the amount of submergence can by no means be limited to the extreme height to which the shells happen to have been traced; for drift of the same character as that of Moel Tryfan extends continuously to the height of 2300 feet. [Note 27]