M. Renoir on the Glaciers of the Vosges, 287 



From the bottom of the valley of St Amarin, I returned to 

 the lateral valley of which I have already spoken, which leads 

 to that of the Moselle by the Col de Bussang. I immediately 

 perceived, above the village of Orbey, near the road, several 

 polished surfaces, of small extent it is true, and not so well 

 preserved as those of Wesscrling ; but their small extent is of 

 no importance, since these vestiges, as we have already stated, 

 are not necessarily any thing else than the remains of broad 

 surfaces almost entirely destroyed. Higher up, near the point 

 where the road turns abruptly, I again found similar surfaces, 

 better preserved, and their strige quite visible at upwards of 

 500 metres above Wesserling. 



From this point, as far as the village of St Maurice in the val- 

 ley of the Moselle, and even as far as the summit of the height 

 of Alsace, I met with nothing characteristic, unless the debris, 

 more or less rolled, and in unstratified masses, intersected in 

 different directions by ravines, and covered with some blocks 

 which encumber the valley of Bussang to St Maurice, be not 

 the remains of a long moraine, which rested on the south- 

 cast declivity of the small chain of Tete des Corbeaux, opposite 

 to that of Tete de Perche^ or of the height from which the gla- 

 cier may have descended. 



It is in descending the southern declivity of the height of 

 Giromagny, and towards the bottom of the declivity, that the 

 proofs of the ancient existence of a glacier become evident, 

 A little below the Saut de la Truite^ we begin to discover, 

 even in the ditch by the roadside, the first traces of a polished 

 surface, with well preserved stria?. A little farther down, these 

 same surfaces appear well developed, and extend throughout 

 the whole breadth of the valley, as far as the outlet of the 

 gorge which incloses the road ; but they are not so well pre- 

 served, and, doubtless for that reason, exhibit no striae. They 

 are seen even on the rocks of the left bank of the Savour euse, 

 at a greater height than that of the rocks of Tete des Planches, 

 that is to say, at upwards of 130 metres above the valley of 

 Giromagny, on all the places sufficiently hard and sheltered 

 against this action of the atmosphere to have remained entire, 

 and not fallen into an earth v detritus. 



