34 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS (March 7, 
period of cold was a sudden one is further sustained by the fact, 
that the inclined strata in which the Mediterranean animals are 
buried, are at once covered transgressively and unconformably by other 
beds of gravel, shingle, and mud, in which the remains of plants and 
animals are those of a cold climate. 
The third scene, therefore, exhibited the sands and pebbles of the 
genial period thrown up into mountains on the flanks of the chain, 
the peaks of which were probably covered for the first time with 
snow, and from the openings of which, whether protruding to the 
sea-shore or into deep fiords or bays, glaciers and their moraines 
advanced, from which ice-bergs or rafts were floated away as sug- 
gested. 
In concluding Sir Roderick thus expressed himself : — ‘‘ Having 
“thus now conducted you rapidly through the most prominent 
‘changes which the Alps have undergone, from the first period when 
“they had emerged, probably as an archipelago of low islands in a 
‘tropical climate, to that epoch when the animals and plants living 
‘upon them indicated a Mediterranean temperature, and then to that 
*« Arctic period, the conditions of which I have just been discussing, 
“T have no longer to call for your assent to any inferences of 
“the geologist, which all of you are not perfectly competent to un- 
«« derstand. 
“To convert the Alps of the earliest glacial period into the Alps 
‘of the present day, you have only to figure them to yourselves, as 
‘raised 2000 or 3000 feet above the altitude which they are sup- 
“posed to have in the diagram last exhibited. All their main 
“features remaining the same, you would then have before you, the 
«present Alps and their valleys, irrigated by lakes and rivers instead 
‘of bays; and in place of the waters sketched in beyond them as 
‘“‘in the painting, with ice-bergs floating upon them, you will then 
‘have dry mounds of gravel, sand, and blocks, which were accumu- 
‘lated under the former waters ; such, in a word, as now constitute 
« Jow hills and valleys and all the richest land of Switzerland and 
«‘ Bavaria, where man has replaced the rhinoceros and turtles of one 
«period, and the icebergs of another. You who have not visited 
“this noble chain, and who wish to judge of its gorges, peaks, and 
“« precipices have only to consult the views of our associate Brocke- 
«don, in order to have nature in her present mood, brought in the 
“most telling manner before you. But those of you who really 
“wish to grapple with the geological wonders of former days, may 
‘look at the flanks of the Rigi from the lake of Lucerne, whence, 
“‘even from the deck of the rapidly passing steamer, you will see 
“how that great pile of pudding-stone, every pebble of which 
“ has been derived from rocks in the chain more ancient than itself, 
‘*has been lifted up from beneath the waters in the manner re- 
‘presented; whilst if you continue the same traverse up the Lake to 
«« Altorf, you will pass by numerous extraordinary folds and breaks of 
‘* the secondary limestones, and of the older Tertiary or Nummulitic 
a 
