LYELL. 339 



as geologists had shown from the nature of the 

 fossil remains in lately formed gravels, that arctic 

 animals lived far south in Europe, shortly before 

 the existing state of things, we ought to find 

 evidences of the cold climate which allowed those 

 animals to live so far south. These evidences are at 

 hand in the remains of the glaciers, which in those 

 days extended far lower than they do now, and 

 were grander in extent. Thus a lofty mound or 

 ridge, two thousand feet high, called the Serra, 

 running into the great alluvial flat of the River Po, 

 where maize and mulberries grow, is a huge ter- 

 minal moraine of an ancient glacier. Ice reigned 

 supreme there in the glacial period, and brought 

 down the stone from the distant hills, and deposited 

 it on the Serra. In Forfarshire, Lyell had noticed the 

 peculiar contorted appearance of the beds of clay, 

 gravel and sand of glacial formation, and also in 

 the mud cliffs of Norfolk. He v/as anxious to 

 know whether any of the ancient glacial heaps or 

 moraines of the country south of the Alps, showed 

 similar indications of pressure and forcing along by 

 ice. " It happened that a railway w^as making from 

 Turin to Ivrea, and although they cut through the 

 lowest part of the terminal moraines near Mazzi 

 they have thought it worth while to make a tunnel, 

 through which we walked." Near the entrance, " I 

 was delighted," wrote Lyell, " to see that curious 

 folding of the strata, which will cause the same 

 beds to be here pierced by a perpendicular shaft, 

 yet without the beds having participated in the 



