ABSTRACT
One possible factor in the delayed formulation and ambivalent reception of a glacial theory is mentioned by Professor Carozzi. He follows his statement of the problem with the suggestion that “the old belief in the transportation of great boulders by huge water and mud currents, in relation to the universal deluge of the Mosaic tradition, was so deeply implanted in the mind of laymen as well as scientists that it took the joint efforts of Agassiz and his glacialist predecessors to displace it. Glacial periods are very rare events, and the fact that the earth emerged from the most recent glacial episode a mere ten thousand years ago was bound to make its traces all the more striking. Charpentier's argument for the former extension of the Alpine glaciers was impeccably based on actualistic method. In Britain Agassiz's theory had the same ambivalent reception as on the Continent.
