260 Sir R. I. Murchison on the Distribution of the 
Cantons Vaud, Friburg, Berne, and Soleure, and to have pro- 
truded its erratics to the slopes of the Jura, over a region of 
about 100 miles in breadth from north-east to south-west, as 
laid down in the map of Charpentier. He maintains, that in 
the low and undulating region between the Alps and the 
Jura, the small debris derived from the former has every- 
where been water-worn, and that there is in no place which 
he saw anything resembling a true moraine ; and he, therefore, 
believes, that the great granitic blocks of Mont Blane were 
translated to the Jura by ice-floats, when the intermediate 
country was under water. He further appeals to the water- 
worn condition of all the detritus of the high plateaux around 
Munich, 1600 feet and 1700 feet above the sea, to shew that a 
subaqueous condition of things must be assumed, for the 
whole of the northern flanks of the Alps, when the great er- 
ratic blocks were carried to their present positions. 
Professor Guyot of Neufchatel has endeavoured to shew, 
that the detritus of the rocks of the right and left sides of 
the upper valley of the Rhone have also maintained their ori- 
ginal relative positions in the great extra-alpine depression 
(Lake of Geneva), and that these relations are proofs that 
nothing but a solid glacier could have arranged the blocks in 
such linear directions. But the author meets this objection by 
suggesting, that there are notable examples to the contrary. 
He also refers to the great ¢rainées of similar blocks, which 
preserve linear directions in Sweden and the low countries 
south of the Baltic, to shew, that, as this phenomenon was 
certainly there produced by powerful streams of water, so 
may the alpine detritus have been arranged by similar agency. 
In alluding to the drainage of the Isére, he further points to 
the admission of Professor Guyot, that nearly all its erratic 
detritus, both large and small, is rounded, and has undergone 
great attrition ; and he quotes a number of cases in which 
such boulders and gravel, derived from the central ridges of 
Mont Blanc, have been transported across tracts now con- 
sisting of lofty ridges of limestone with very deep interven- 
ing valleys ; and, therefore, he infers that the whole configu- 
ration of these lands has been since much changed, including 
the final excavations of the valleys and the translation of 
