coast-ice. I can offer no opinion on whether the more recent changes of
level in England were or were not accompanied by earthquakes. It does not
seem to me a correct expression (which you use probably from haste in your
note) to speak of elevations or depressions as caused by earthquakes: I
suppose that every one admits that an earthquake is merely the vibration
from the fractured crust when it yields to an upward or downward force. I
must confess that of late years I have often begun to suspect (especially
when I think of the step-like plains of Patagonia, the heights of which
were measured by me) that many of the changes of level in the land are due
to changes of level in the sea. (513/3. This view is an agreement with
the theory recently put forward by Suess in his "Antlitz der Erde" (Prag
and Leipzig, 1885). Suess believes that "the local invasions and
transgressions of the continental areas by the sea" are due to "secular
movements of the hydrosphere itself." (See J. Geikie, F.R.S., Presidential
Address before Section E at the Edinburgh Meeting of the British
Association, "Annual Report," page 794.) I suppose that there can be no
doubt that when there was much ice piled up in the Arctic regions the sea
would be attracted to them, and the land on the temperate regions would
thus appear to have risen. There would also be some lowering of the sea by
evaporation and the fixing of the water as ice near the Pole.

I shall read your paper with much interest when published.


LETTER 514. TO J. GEIKIE.
Down, December 13th, 1880.

You must allow me the pleasure of thanking you for the great interest with
which I have read your "Prehistoric Europe." (514/1. "Prehistoric Europe:
a Geological Sketch," London, 1881.) Nothing has struck me more than the