290 EXTINCT GLACIERS OP SWITZERLAND. chap. XT. 



CHAPTER XV. 



EXTINCT GLACIERS OF THE ALPS AND THEIR CHRONOLOGICAL 

 RELATION TO THE HUMAN PERIOD. 



EXTINCT GLACIERS OF SWITZEKLAXD ALPINE ERRATIC BLOCKS ON 



THE JURA — NOT TRANSPORTED BY FLOATING ICE EXTINCT GLACIERS 



OF THE ITALIAN SIDE OF THE ALPS THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF 



LAKE-BASINS BY THE EROSIVE ACTION OF GLACIERS, CONSIDERED. 



SUCCESSIVE PHASES IN THE DEVELOPMENT Of GLACIAL ACTION IN THE 



ALPS PROBABLE RELATION OF THESE TO THE EARLIEST KNOWN DATE 



OF MAN CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SAME WITH SUCCESSIVE CHANGES 



IN THE GLACIAL CONDITION OF THE SCANDINAVIAN AND BRITISH MOUN- 

 TAINS COLD PERIOD IN SICILT AND SYRIA. 



Extinct Glaciers of Switzerland. 



WE have seen in the preceding chapters that the mountains 

 of Scandinavia, Scotland, and North Wales have served, 

 during the glacial period, as so many independent centres 

 for the dispersion of erratic blocks, just as at present the ice- 

 covered continent of North Greenland is sending down ice 

 in all directions to the coast, and filling Baffin's Bay with 

 floating bergs, many of them laden with fragments of rocks. 



Another great European centre of ice-action during the post- 

 pliocene period was the Alps of Switzerland; and I shall now 

 pi'oceed to consider the chronological relations of the extinct 

 Alpine glaciers to those of more northern countries previously 

 treated of 



The Alps lie far south of the limits of the northern drift 

 described in the foregoing pages, being situated between the 

 44th and 47th degrees of north latitude. On the flanks of 

 these mountains, and on the sub-Alpine ranges of hills or 



