ABSTRACT
The problem of what we know today to be glacial phenomena had long puzzled geologists, and such features, because the idea of extensive land glaciers and continental ice-sheets had not yet been conceived, were treated as being similar in origin to mountains and valleys. Geologists had confused themselves by telescoping together many different phenomena within their limited conception of the timespan of earth history, and seeking one explanation to explain them. The ignorance of glacial processes cannot be attributed wholly to any lack of glacial and fluvioglacial landforms although in this respect British geomorphologists were no doubt greatly handicapped by the absence of present glaciers. The more northerly and the mountainous tracts of North America and Eurasia abound in glaciated landscapes but the existing ice-caps and glaciers are restricted to high altitudes and polar latitudes. It was perhaps inevitable that the best descriptions of ice-affected scenery came from Scandinavia and the Alps. Typical were the observations of Nathaniel Wraxall who in his Tour through…the Northern Parts of Europe describes the profusion of erratic blocks to be found all over the countryside:
It is difficult to depicture the aspect of the country in which Louisa (Loviisa, in southern Finland) stands. The earth may almost be said to have disappeared from view, so completely was it covered with stones, or rather rocks. It seems as if they had fallen from the sky; and…the road, compelled to respect these formidable impediments, performs a thousand tortuous evolutions, in order to avoid them, and serpentines beautifully for many miles. (Wraxall, 1775, pt. 3, sect. 2, p. 95)
As we have already mentioned, the presence of these erratics, as well as of the associated ‘drift’ and rock-striations, was generally explained by the action of a universal flood or oceanic inundation which swept huge boulders and smaller material on to plains and highlands alike.
