M. Charpentier on the Erratic Phenomena of the North. G7 



transport could only have been effected by an actual sub- 

 marine current, produced by the difference of temperature 

 between the water in the vicinity of the glacier, and that 

 which was more to the south. Looking at the course of the 

 current, it must have assumed a direction from north to south, 

 and traversed the bottom of the sea ; the greater part of that 

 sea having probably had but little depth. Carrying along 

 with it the comminuted debris, that current deposited the 

 diluvium which constitutes the plains of the north-west of 

 Russia, of Poland, of Prussia, and of the north of Germany. 



Beyond the limit of the erratic formation, and dispersed on 

 the surface of the soil or enveloped in the diluvium, we find 

 fragments of rock which have their surfaces and their pro- 

 minent portions in a good state of preservation. Rolled 

 blocks are also met with there, whose volume is too consider- 

 able to allow us to suppose that they have been transported 

 by currents, which, judging from the regularity of the stratifi- 

 cation of the diluvium, cannot have been violent. I attribute, 

 without hesitation, the transport of such matters to floating ice, 

 that is to saVjtoinassesof icedetachedfrom the glacier, of which 

 some have been transported by rivers, while others, and pro- 

 bably the larger proportion, having fallen into the sea, have 

 been forced to the south by the impulsion of the winds from 

 the north ; in fact, marine currents could not have conveyed 

 them to the south, because, that of the bottom having pursued, 

 as I have already said, a course from north to south, the cur- 

 rent existing at the surface must have had a contrary direction. 



The formation c^f the erratic formation must have com- 

 menced from the period when the snow was transformed into 

 ice. But these first deposits were not permanent ; for in pro- 

 portion as the glacier made progress, it overthrew them and 

 displaced them anew. It thus continued to destroy its own 

 work until it reached the maximum of its development. 

 During the time of its greatest extension, it formed the ter- 

 minal moraine, that is to say, the moraine farthest to the south. 

 The circumstance that this moraine probably does not exist 

 along the whole line indicating the shape of the glacier at the 

 period of its greatest development, cannot be an objection to 

 the hypothesis which I defend. In fact, existing glaciers 



