218 M. Charpentier on the Glaciers of the Canton Vallais. 



passes of the Alps, than in the lower part of the valley. If these 

 rubbings had been produced by a rush of water or a flood, the 

 case would have been reversed. 



If I were not afraid of fatiguing the reader, I would fur- 

 ther quote a multitude of phenomena, which, in this manner, 

 stand also in connection with erratic blocks ; and I could still 

 add many circumstances, presented at almost every step on our 

 mountains and in our plains, and which, taken together, sup- 

 port the opinion, that, in former times, all the alpine valleys, 

 and part of the plains at the foot of the mountains, were occu- 

 pied by enormous glaciers. 



Among others, may be mentioned, the cylindrical perpendicu- 

 lar scoopings which are observable on the surface of isolated 

 masses of rock in the bottoms of the valleys ; the fissure-shaped 

 scoopings which, in the German Switzerland are termed karren 

 or karrenfelder ; traces of scoopings on isolated masses of rock, 

 distinctly resulting from waterfalls ; the enormous extension of 

 all old beds of river, which distinctly prove, by the regular stra- 

 tification of the matter of which they consist, that the mass of 

 water which formerly flowed into them must, for a long period, 

 have been more considerable than the present quantity, even at 

 its greatest height ; &c. 



I shall only further add, that the occurrence of deposits of 

 alpine blocks on the sides of the Jura, and even on some parts 

 of its ridge, by no means renders necessai-y the supposition that 

 the old glaciers must have filled with their mass the whole space 

 between the Alps and Jura, or that, in other words, their thick- 

 ness was, to a certain extent, equal to the height of the ridge 

 of the Jura above the plain. Such an opinion would be not 

 only improbable, but would be opposed to what takes place be- 

 fore our eyes. For when a glacier in a valley runs at about a 

 right angle to the direction of that valley, it sometimes happens 

 that it extends across the valley, and rises on the side of the 

 mountain opposite to a more or less considerable height, depend- 

 ing on the mass of the glacier, and which is in inverse ratio to 

 the steepness of the acclivity it has to ascend. 



Nor does the occurrence of alpine blocks at a great distance 

 from Switzerland, render necessary the belief in an altogether 

 improbable extent of the old glaciers ; for those last blocks have 



