Topograph!/ of the Pennine Alps, 325 



rock among those bordering the road, and even to a consi- 

 derable height, which is not moutonn6, grooved or striated 

 in the most characteristic manner. All the hills are cupola- 

 shaped. A little below St Vincent, we already notice an 

 insulated rock in the middle of the valley, which seems to 

 issue from below the glacier. Further on, the heights which 

 crown the old fort of Mont Jovet, the hill on which the im- 

 pregnable fort of Bard is situated, and all the neighbouring 

 rocks, ai'e likewise moutonnes, and furrowed in the most ad- 

 mirable manner. At the opening of the valley, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Ivree, all the hills, comprising the diorite around 

 that town, exhibit these characters in the highest degree. It 

 may be said, that vt'hercver the rock is exposed, it shews the 

 corroding marlcs of the erratic agent. Nowhere are they so 

 marked as at the narrow parts of the valley, especially below 

 St Vincent, at Mont Jovet, and Fort de Bard ; and we may 

 observe here, as elsewhere in the same circumstances, the 

 tendency of the furrows to ascend in a direction contrary to 

 the slope of the valley. 



Beyond Ivree, the erratic phenomena present themselves 

 in a form as grand as it is novel. To the east of this town, 

 the horizon is bounded by a large, steep hill, composed en- 

 tirely of pebbles, mud, and erratic blocks. This is the hill 

 of Serra, which rises from the side of Mont St Andre to two- 

 thirds of its height, and descends in an inclined and regular 

 line towards the plain, turning its abrupt face to the west. 

 This is a true moraine, analogous to the great erratic bar 

 which extends from the rocks of Memise to Thonon, on the 

 left bank of the lake of Geneva, but even more strongly cha- 

 racterised. M. Studer has already pointed it out as such to 

 the attention of geologists. ToAvards the south, in the axis 

 of the opening of the valley, on the road from Ivree to Chi- 

 vasso, we meet with many masses of erratic debris in the 

 form of arched bands, the true terminal moraines of the great 

 glacier of Aoste. The first appears at Strambino, the second 

 at Cundia, the third atCalusso; beyond the latter village, 

 tlie levelled plain and ancient diluvium of Lombardy com- 

 mence. In this place, as in Brianza, at the mouth of the 

 Lake of C'omo, and on (he bunks of Lake Macrgiore and Lake 



