482 ON THE CONNECTION OF GEOLOGY 



The principal powers which contribute to the trans- 

 portation of soil, are, The weight of loose masses, ice, 

 and water. The weight of loose masses is a cause of 

 transportation which we frequently see in operation. By 

 it the huge cones of debris at the base and upon the de- 

 clivities of precipices and mountains, are gradually car- 

 ried off toward the bottom of the valleys ; a phenomenon 

 which can scarcely any where be better seen than in the 

 valleys of the Alps, where mountains sometimes occur 

 evidently consisting of debris, and clothed with trees and 

 shrubs, or covered with pastures, the masses of which 

 are gradually moved, as upon inclined planes, by the ac- 

 tion of the water which percolates through them. 



Ice effects the transportation of rocks and debris, with 

 a power which nothing can resist. This is no where 

 more conspicuous than among the glaciers of the Alps, 

 by the falling of which great heaps of stones and rubbish 

 are produced. The transportation of large stones by 

 means of ice may also be seen in our mountain torrents 

 in winter. Huge masses of stone, scattered over the 

 plains of the north of Germany and the islands of Den- 

 mark, and often very prejudicial to agriculture, whose 

 northern origin appears to be established, may have been 

 carried by the same powerful agent from Finland, Swe- 

 den and Norway, into those countries, at a time when 

 the plains of northern Germany, with the other flat dis- 

 tricts along the shores of the Baltic, were still covered 

 by the waves of the ocean. 



In the formation of transported soil, water usually 

 exerts a great degree of power. By means of it, not 

 only are vast masses transported to the greatest dis- 

 tances, but their parts are at the same time crumbled 



