04 jM. Charponticr on the Erratic Phenomena of the North. 



tlie osars ? That cannot be, because the total mass of those 

 accumulations is much too small compared with the quantity 

 of rocly debris which the current must have transported. 

 Perhaps this excess, this surplus of materials, may have given 

 rise to the deposit of diluvium which is of such extent in the 

 north of Europe \ But neither could that be the case, for 

 the stratification, often very regular, of this formation, and 

 •''' good state of preservation of the shells which it contains, 

 not allow us to attribute its formation to a current so 

 sudden and so impetuous as that one must have been which 

 is supposed to have abraded and furrowed the rocks, and to 

 have tra. -'ported the blocks constituting the ijsars. How did 

 these matters not fill up, if not the Gulfs of Scandinavia, at 

 all events the lakes existing in such abundance in the coun- 

 tries invaded by this debacle ? I am indeed unable to give a 

 reply to this question. 



Perhaps an objection to the glacier hypothesis Avill be found 

 in the quantity of debi'is composing the erratic formation, 

 for it may be said, and with much reason, that the mountains 

 which rose above the surface of the glacier were too few in 

 number, and presented too limited a superficies, to allow of 

 the eboidements which fell on the glacier, furnishing a mass 

 of debris so considerable as that now found distributed. This 

 olijection would, indeed, be unanswerable, if the materials 

 which a glacier transports must necessarily have fallen on its 

 surface. But it is not so, for the fragments of rock which we 

 find on the ridge of a glacier are not all derived from eboule- 

 ments ; on the contrary, there are many of them which come 

 from the bottom or bed of the glacier. As to the manner in 

 which these stones arrive at the surface from the bottom or bed 

 of a glacier, I have described it in detail in my Essay (§ 25). 

 TIuis, then, undoubtedly, the largest portion of the debris con- 

 stituting the erratic formation and the diluvium of the north, 

 docs not owe its origin to eboulements. These fragments 

 have been detached from the rocks at a period anterior to the 

 formation of the ice, by the very revolutions which varied the 

 configuration of Scandinavia, and they have arrived at the 

 surface of the glacier, not from above by a descent, but from 

 beneath, having been elevated l)y the ice. 



