THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON THE DELUGE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1189, 22 December 1883, Page 1

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON THE DELUGE.

The Duke of Argyll delivered a lecture lately at Glasgow on ‘‘Geology and the Deluge.” He said the common practice was to suppose that there had been a deluge, aud • then ask for proofs. Ha would not theorise, but deal with geological facts., Till about twenty years ago he had been rather in doub'f whether a deluge had really occurred. The fact that old sea levels could be traced in the British Isles afforded no truth of the deluge. By the deluge was meant a sudden and transitory submergence, not s ich a permanent submergence as would le id tomthe sea forming a bed: He thought, however, that The huge boulders found on high Scotch mountains, ’ the rocks arid, strata bf which! Were entirely different, could drily have been brought by immense’ glaciers, such as at present ■ existed in the Arctic, regions, In his opinion, the period which theiiid boulders indicated was coincident and connected with the deluge period. Again, the heaps of gravel found upon Snowdon, which was' not a volanic mountain, indicated that transitory audTumultuoua waters had covered thosjo | heights. The first action .of Water was the washing away of fine earth and the depositing of gravel. Similar masses of gravel were found, at Macclesfield, and. indeed all over • the country. They were fourid at such a height above the sea, levej, that the water I at that height would have covered almost I the whole of Europe. The duke expressed: I an opinion that- .ilier'6"whs’ ! a jjreat sub- I mergence of land to the'depth of at least. 2000 ft in Scotland, and that'this catas-■ trophe was coincident with what known as the deluge. H