The Fairy-Land of Science

In those ancient days, there were even glaciers in England; for in Cumberland and in Wales you may see their work, in scratched and rounded rocks, and the moraines they have left. Llanberis Pass, so famous for its beauty, is covered with ice-scratches, and blocks are scattered all over the sides of the valley. There is one block high up on the right-hand slope of the valley, as you enter from the Beddgelert side, which is exactly poised upon another block, so that it rocks to and fro. It must have been left thus balanced when the ice melted round it. You may easily see that these blocks were carried by ice, and not by water, because their edges are sharp, whereas if they had been rolled in water, they would have been smoothed down. We cannot here go into the history of that great Glacial Period long ago, when large fields of ice covered all the north of England; but when you read it for yourselves and understand the changes on the earth's surface which we can see being made by ice now, then such grand scenery as the rugged valleys of Wales, with large angular stone blocks scattered over them, will tell you a wonderful story of the ice of bygone times.