Remarks on the Level of the Molasse in the Eastern Alps. 135 
diluvial terraces of Geneva are genuine river formations, 
without the shadow of anything like traces of the sea.” 
The tertiary sea had entirely disappeared when the diluvial 
period began. The heights I give you are taken from 
Dufour’s splendid military map; being trigonometrically 
measured, they deserve full confidence as to their correct- 
ness. I am much obliged for the notice on your till and 
drift ; but 1 feel that I must see it with my own eyes to geta 
clear notion of it. I hope, in course of time, to make an ap- 
plication of your theory on the changes of the relative level 
of seaand land. The theory of soudévemens of Elie de Beau- 
mont, although true in many cases, will have to be modified. 
You will easily perceive that my researches on the molasse 
are not at all unfavourable to you; when combined with what 
we know of the molasse in the rest of the world, it even 
leads us to suspect an immense change of 3000 feet over the 
whole globe, and of which your diluvial changes of a few 
hundred feet would be the last tip end of the tail. An im- 
mense and powerful continent must have been submerged 
somewhere, even before the subsidence of the Pacifie conti- 
nent. I am glad to be able to furnish you with some data on 
the west coast of North America, from a letter of my friend, 
William Fraser Tolmie of Glasgow, surgeon to the Hudson’s 
Bay Company in Oregon. In laying it before the Friends of 
Science at Vienna, I again recalled to mind your theory, 
which is strongly supported by the fact of these terraces be- 
ing now known all round North and South America. My 
friend writes from Nisqually on Puget’s Sound. As he is in 
hopes of coming over in 1850, you may perhaps see him. I 
answered his letter, and mentioned your views. 
Scotland being such a beautiful fiord region might, perhaps, 
furnish good data to complete the proposed theory. I take 
* Allusion is here made to a paper by Mr Chambers, which appeared in this 
Journal (January 1849), and in which it was maintained, that a recipient body 
of water, such as the sea, is required, besides a river, to account for the forma- 
tion of valley terraces, placed high above the present beds of the river. The 
author thinks that M. Morlot, from prepossession of mind, may have given too 
hasty a glance at this paper, and failed to observe the force of its arguments. 
