the Diluvial Epoch. 277 



which they cannot reach in the existing physical conditions. 

 On the route from Cormayeur to the Col de la Seigne, for 

 example, we find one of these surfaces opposite the glacier of 

 the Brenva, which may, however, even in the present times, 

 advance tliat length, and shut in the Allee-Blanche, as hap- 

 pened within our recollection with the glaciers of the valleys 

 of Bagne and Saass. But this supposition cannot be admitted 

 in regard to the polished and striated rocks which we have 

 noticed between Macugnaga and Pesterena ; nor in regard to 

 those of Val-Quarrazza, at the northern base of Monte-Turlo; 

 and still less in relation to the distinctly marked ones which 

 we observe near St Vincent in the vale of Aosta, on issuing 

 from the defile of Mont Jovet. 



What must we, then, infer from the series of the same phe- 

 nomena continued, with little interruption, from the bottom 

 of our glaciers, to such distances as that from St Vincent to 

 Mont Cervin, or rather from the lake of Bienne to the gla- 

 ciers of Savoy ? Shall we be obliged, by assigning the same 

 causes to the same effects, to believe that the former exten- 

 sion of our glaciers was much beyond the most advanced li- 

 mits they now attain ; or rather that a covering of ice had en- 

 veloped the whole of the terrestrial globe, if it be true that the . 

 same phenomenon likewise appears in Sweden, England, and 

 other countries very remote from high mountains ? It must be 

 confessed that this inference, drawn from a single series of 

 facts, acquires great weight by the consideration, that it is 

 likewise the same which MM. Venetz and Charpentier have 

 deduced from the examination of ancient moraines, and by the 

 facility with which, by adopting it, we solve some of the most 

 difficult questions relating to the diluvial era. But it must 

 not, at the same time, be concealed, that, by adopting this 

 explanation of these facts, we place ourselves in opposition to 

 what seem the best established opinions respecting animal 

 and vegetable life before and during the diluvial period, and 

 to all that physics and astronomy have taught us regarding 

 the laws which regulate the temperature of our climate, and 

 of the terrestrial globe in general. 



Among the different facts relative to the dilutium observed 



