236 Professor Pictet on Fossil Bones, 



and I never saw any motion in the snow at that season, what- 

 ever might be the degree of inclination in the slopes. 



Phenomena peculiar to great glaciers, such as crevasses, 

 tables, and needle-like prominences, &c., are not here ob- 

 served ; but it is not a little remarkable, that our small 

 model glaciers possess one of the most characteristic proper- 

 ties of these masses of ice, namely motion.* 



Memoir on the Bones found in the Stratified Gravels in the vi- 

 cinity of Mattegnin^ Canton of Geneva. By Professor F. J. 

 Pictet. 



Some years ago, we were informed by M. Fazy, coun- 

 sellor of State, then Mayor of the community of Meyrin, that 

 numerous bones had been found in digging a gravel quarry 

 near Mattegnin. The importance of fossil organic remains, 

 in order to determine the relative age of formations, is so 

 great, that we immediately took means to have all these bones 

 carefully collected. M. Fazy himself superintended the work- 



* The fact of the transformation of masses of snow into ice and into small 

 temporary glaciers, has likewise been observed among the Alps. I find, in the 

 Bulletin de la Societe Qeologique, which gives an account of the extraordinary 

 meeting at Avallon, a note of the Canon Gall, containing very interesting obser- 

 vations on the erratic phenomenon of the Valley of Aoste. This note contains 

 the following paragraph on the subject which now occupies our attention. 



" With regard to the rocks found on the passage of the avalanches, they pre- 

 sent a surface rather rubbed than polished by the friction or collision of wood 

 and pebbles, or stones carried along by the huge masses of snow ; I never saw 

 any striae. I have said the passage ; for the rocks found in the bottom when the 

 avalanche is arrested, may be polished and striated, since the avalanche, when 

 it is very considerable, and lasts a long time without melting, assumes the cha- 

 racter of a small temporary glacier. We observe in it almost the same revolu- 

 tions ; the snow becomes ice, it presents various vaults at its base, its surface is 

 crevassed, &c. This I have remarked this year at Pre-Saint-Didier. at the 

 avalanche of Champex, which annually descends from a valley on the north- 

 west of Mount Grammont, and which, at the end of the month of July, was 

 still, judging by the eye, about 6 metres above the ground." — Bulletin de la 

 Societe Geologique, 2d Series, vol. ii., p. 730. 



