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The ocean and its wonders - Page 50
The ocean and its wonders - Page 50
CHAPTER XI.

Ice an agent in transporting boulders—How this comes about—Dr. Kane's observations—Long night in winter and long day in summer—Extreme darkness—Influence on dogs—Intense cold-effect on the sea.

There are many things in this world which, up to within a few years back, have been to men a source of surprise and mystery. Some of these problems have been solved by recent travellers, and not a few of them are referable to polar oceans and ice.

In many parts of our coasts we find very striking and enormously large boulder-stones lying on the beach, perfectly isolated, and their edges rounded away like pebbles, as if they had been rolled on some antediluvian beach strewn with Titanic stones. These boulders are frequently found upon the loose sands of the sea-shore, far removed from any rocks or mountains from which they might be supposed to have been broken; and, more than that, totally different in their nature from the geological formations of the districts in which they are found. "Whence