by Professor Studer. 173 



land out of the sea, — an explanation which has been deve- 

 loped with remarkable ingenuity by Darwin for South 

 America, and more recently by Sartorius von Waltershausen 

 for Iceland.* In those countries which have emerged from 

 the sea, people are readily inclined to ascribe all traces of 

 former erosion and destruction to the contiguous element, 

 whose contests with the solid land are testified by daily ex- 

 perience ; while in Switzerland, on the other hand, situated 

 as it is in the interior of the Continent, we seek aid from 

 those agencies which produce the grandest eifects in our 

 experience. Proof, however, is certainly as yet wanting, 

 that the retiring sea, or the friction of coast-ice, can pro- 

 duce phenomena of erosion similar to those which are due 

 to the slow motion of glacier-ice. Willingly would I aid in 

 attributing to the waves of the sea the origin of our great 

 Molasse valleys, and the covering of their bottoms with 

 thick deposits of gravel and other materials, if I could but 

 satisfy myself with the assertion of Darwin, that the preser- 

 vation of marine organic remains is only an exceptional case, 

 and that their absence, even in widely-extended formations, 

 is not to be adduced as an argument against the marine 

 origin of these formations. In the meantime, it may per- 

 haps be possible to bring into agreement for the explanation 

 of our Swiss phenomena both principles — those, namely, of 

 marine erosion, and of the deposition of gravel by mountain 

 streams ; for I have long felt convinced, that considerable 

 changes, like those which are at present taking place in 

 Sweden, — that is, elevations without disturbance of the hori- 

 zontal position of the beds, — have occurred in Switzerland 

 and its vicinity, at a period subsequent to the deposition of 

 our gravel. 



* Vide Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xlv., for Waltershausen's 

 Observations. 



