M. Agassiz cm Glaciers, Moraines, and Erratic Blocks. 365 



tained ; Natural History, considering the phases of life through- 

 out animated nature ; and, finally, Geology, which ventures to 

 comprehend the history of our globe, to decipher its oldest 

 records, and to represent them as one grand whole, whose va- 

 rious revolutions have invariably tended to one great result. 



From the progress of these, there will, no doubt, one day 

 appear a noble result, something worthy of Man, which will 

 introduce the cultivation of the natural sciences within the 

 circle and sympathies of social life, more powerfully than all 

 the advantages which they bestow upon industry and the arts, 

 however prodigious these may be. 



Our society has not been a stranger to the movement here 

 alluded to, and the names of its members appear honourably 

 by the side of those masters in science who have united with 

 us in our labours. This very day's meeting, better perhaps 

 than any other, may prove that my assertion is not at all exag- 

 gerated. You, gentlemen, know that our small society has 

 served as a model to those vast associations in Germany, Eng- 

 land, and France, which can boast of so many illustrious names ; 

 and if the labours which it has undertaken have appeared less 

 brilliant than those accomplished by greater societies, it has at 

 least given the first impulse to more than one interesting un- 

 dertaking. 



Still more recently, two of our members have, by their re- 

 searches, given rise to discussions of the deepest importance, 

 and the result of which will resound far and near. The loca- 

 lity in which we have now met, leads me again to introduce to 

 your notice a subject whose solution will be found in the exa- 

 mination of the slopes of our Jura. I mean to speak of gla* 

 ciers, moraines, and erratic blocks. 



Every one in Switzerland is familiar with the glaciers, and 

 knows that their margins are bounded by dykes of roundish 

 blocks which are called moraines, and which are continually 

 pushed forwards, or abandoned, by the glaciers, as these ad- 

 vance or retire. The inhabitants of the Jura especially are 

 acquainted with another phenomenon which is striking among 

 our mountains, — I mean that oi erratic blocTcs, or those masses of 

 granite and other primitive rocks, which are found chiefly on 

 the southern slopes of the Jura. It is not, however, so gene- 



VOL. XXIV, NO. XLVm. APRIL 1838. B b 



