Note 21 — Chapter II

Sir A. Ramsay’s theory (Physical Geol. and Geogr. of Great Britain, 6th ed., 1894, p. 269), that the basins of the Scottish and Cumbrian lakes were scooped out of the rocks by glaciers, was held by no British geologist a few years ago, except in a modified form. See A. J. Jukes-Browne, Student’s Handbook of Phys. Geol., 2nd ed., 1892, pp. 159, 624, 629-30; T. G. Bonney, Ice-Work, Present and Past, 1896, pp. 80-94; and Sir A. Geikie, Text-book of Geol., 1903, i, 552; ii, 1323-4, 1385-6. Prof. W. M. Davis of Harvard has, however, recently produced fresh evidence ‘in favour of the excavating power of glaciers’ (Trans. Roy. Soc., Edinburgh, xl, part ii, 1902, p. 457); and Ramsay’s theory is ‘in no wise extinct’ (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., lxii, 1906, p. 166); but Prof. E. J. Garwood has recently investigated the Alpine lakes near Airolo, and holds (ib., p. 190) that, with a few possible exceptions, they ‘do not seem to be due to ice-erosion’.