EPOCH OF DILUVIUM. 



molasse. It was the same in Guienne, in Languedoc, in Provence, 

 in Piedmont and Switzerland ; and the form of the seas was once 

 again changed. But, in time, great Jakes were formed in the inte- 

 rior of the lands : one, from Dijon to near the Isere ; another, in the 

 southern part of Alsace ; and a third, in Provence, from Sisteron 

 to the borders of the Durance. 



At that time all the carni'vora appeared of the genera ursus, 

 hyena, felis, cam's, <$*c., which inhabited caverns ; their remains 

 aie not found in the Parisian formation ; their species disappeared, 

 not only from the European continent, but from the face of the 

 globe, in the next epoch. There also appeared several new 

 rodents, horses, ruminants, and probably the gigantic edentate ani- 

 mal, with slow and heavy gait, the megathe'rium (Jig. 178, p. 92), 

 whose head and whole aspect were similar to the sloths, although 

 its size was that of the largest rhinoceros, and its body must have 

 been covered by a bony cuirass like the armadillo. 



Epoch of diluvium. At this time Europe took its present form, 

 and its relief was definitely fixed. The upheaval of the principal 

 Alps, in forming all the chains which extend to Austria, in elevating 

 likewise some portions of the western Alps, also raised up the soil 

 in a great part of Europe, and especially caused the division of the 

 waters between the ocean and the Mediterranean. The effects pro- 

 duced show that enormous currents of water were established in all 

 directions, which furrowed all the deposits then uncovered ; but the 

 volume of waters furnished by lakes, previously fdrmed in the interior 

 of lands, whose barriers were no doubt broken in the new catastrophe 

 of upheaval, was in relation to the vastness of the result produced; 

 it must have been prodigiously increased by some circumstances, 

 attributable, perhaps, to the sudden melting of the snows, and gla- 

 ciers then accumulated on the western Alps. The currents which 

 were formed, in furrowing the surface of lands, carried their debris 

 in all directions ; hence the alluvions of the valley of the Rhone, 

 of Crau, of the plains of Lombardy, those of Bavaria, the valley 

 of the Rhine, &c. ; hence the last configuration of the valleys, the 

 denudations, and the dislocations, seen in so many different places. 

 It is from the upheaval of this part of the Alps, that the separation 

 of France and England appears to date, as well as that of Ireland, 

 by ruptures effected between Brest and Cape Lizard, between 

 Caernarvon and Dublin. It was then that the Mediterranean took 

 its present limit?, in consequence of the subsidence of formations 

 which extended to the south of Marseilles, at the epoch of the 

 parisian sea. The gulf of Bothnia was perhaps produced in thif> 

 epoch, since the shell deposits found on some points of the coast 

 are all referred to the sub-Apennine formations. 



But change of configuration in the soil was not the only conse- 

 quence of the appearance of the principal Alps ; this catastrophe, 

 extending over a great part of the world, from the height of Spaij 

 38* 



