THE ICE AGE. 91 



Third is the presumption of many that they are the wreck of a 

 mantle of rocks of similar kinds which once covered the surface, and 

 by different agencies have been tossed into alignments, heaped into 

 hills, or left undisturbed upon the mountains. 



Fourth, Dolomieu supposed that the summits of the Alps, and 

 those of the Jura Mountains, were formerly connected by a regular 

 incline, down which the masses of rock rolled, so that bowlders from 

 the Alps got perched upon the Jura, and that during subsequent con- 

 vulsions the ground sunk and assumed its present form. 



Fifth, Venturi suggested very early the aid of ice, as glaciers and 

 floating ice, to explain their transportation. 



Sixth, a view, received by several, regarded the Jura range to have 

 been once a level plain at the feet of the Alps, and that, when it had 

 become strewed with bowlders, torn by frost and torrents from the latter,- 

 it was elevated into a line of hills carrying up its old accumulations. 



Seventh, M. de Buch, developing the first theory, thought that the 

 erratics were a conseciuence of the elevation of the Alps posterior to the 

 deposition of the Tertiary, 



Eighth, the Noachian deluge was burdened with the responsibility 

 of their dispersion. 



Ninth, glacial action, as explained by Prof. Agassiz. 



Tenth, ancient alluvial action, identical in nature with that known 

 at present. 



Eleventh, action, by its tractile strength, of the receding waters of 

 the ocean, as mountain-chains were successively upheaved above its 

 surface. 



Twelfth, elevation of the arctic seas, which caused a flow of water 

 from the polar regions, transporting ice loaded with rocks and gravel 

 southward. 



Thirteenth, icebergs. 



Fourteenth, an explanation of the phenomena in the United States, 

 viz., a drainage of a vast inland sea through the valleys of the St. Law- 

 rence, Hudson, Susquehanna, Ohio, etc., accompanied or followed by a 

 debacle of ice and drift from the north. 



Fifteenth, a change in the axis of rotation of the earth. 



Sixteenth, collision with a comet, which extraordinary jolt loosened 

 the rocks, and rattled them from the mountain-peaks to the adjacent 

 plains. 



Seventeenth, shrinkage of the earth, increased velocity of rotation, 

 and consequent rush of arctic waters to the equator, carrying bowlders. 



In the above enumeration some theories will be observed to have 

 only a local application, and were originated at a time when the disper- 

 sion of bowlders was not known to have so universal a character. Of 

 these seventeen hypotheses we believe it would be impossible to insist 

 seriously upon more than two classes : those which attribute the phe- 

 nomena to the action of water, and those which enlist the agency of 



