-M. Charpentier on the Erratic Fhenomoia of the North. 57 



bear on it, the hypothesis of M. Venetz, that is to say, the 

 hypothesis which attributes the transport of erratic blocks to 

 glaciers, would certainly by this time have gained a larger 

 number of supporters. There are, it is true, many persons 

 who adopt it for the explanation of the erratic phenomena of 

 the Alps ; but this is not the case with regard to the erratic 

 phenomena of the north of Europe. Nevertheless, there seems 

 to me to be so great an analogy between the erratic phenomena 

 of the north and those of the Alps and the Pyrenees, that we 

 may assert that there is an almost complete identity. Not hav- 

 ing visited any of the countries of the north, I only know the 

 erratic phenomenon of Scandinavia by the descriptions that 

 have been given of it, but the most interesting of these had 

 not appeared, or at least had not come under my notice, be- 

 fore the publi(?ation of my book. Judging from the descriptions 

 given by skilful obsers'ers and good geologists, the ditference 

 between the erratic formations of the north and those of the 

 south, consists solely in the extent of the dispersion of the 

 debris ; that dispersion being in the north spread over a sur- 

 face incomparably greater than in the south. It appears, 

 moreover, that in the north, floating masses of ice have had a 

 share in producing this dispersion, whereas in the south, such 

 an agent has been so feeble in its operation, if it existed at 

 all, that traces of its action have not yet been ascertained. 



Although I am far from pretending that analogous, or even 

 identical facts, are always the result of a common cause, it 

 seems to me that the glacier hypothesis explains the erratic 

 phenomena of Scandinavia quite as well as it does those of 

 the Alps, The great repugnance which has hitherto been 

 shewn to the application of this hypothesis to the transport of 

 the erratic debris of the north, proceeds, 1st, From the false 

 idea that has been adopted of the mode of formation, the de- 

 velopment, and the movement of glaciers ; and, 2d, From the 

 error of believing that the glacier hypothesis excludes all 

 operation of other agents. 



Notwithstanding the care I took in the first part of my 

 book to describe, as clearly as was possible for me, the chief 

 phenomena of glaciers, and to explain their theory, it never- 

 theless appears that I have not always been properly under- 



