ENORMOUS BLOCKS. 181 



material for building a house, which has obtained from it the 

 name of " Red Acrestone " ("zum rothen Ackerstein "). In the 

 Steinhof, near Seeberg (in the Canton of Berne) there lie three 

 enormous granite-blocks, the largest of which contains about 

 61,000 cubic feet. In the Canton of Neuchatel a block of fine- 

 grained granite, 50 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 40 feet high, 

 has received the name of the " club-footed stone " (" Pierre a 

 Bot"); another of 12,500 cubic feet, above the village of Mont- 

 la- Ville at the foot of the Jura, is called the "Pierre de Milliet;" 

 the block "du Tresor," near Orsiere, has a cubic content of 

 100,000 feet; and the " Monster Block" on the hill of Montet 

 near Devent, contains 161,000 cubic feet. These are only a 

 few examples of such gigantic blocks ; but they are found in 

 many places over a great part of Switzerland*. 



It is remarkable that in some places masses of blocks of the 

 same kind are to be found lying together. Thus south of Fal- 

 landen a number of rock-fragments consisting of sernifite (red 

 acrestone) are piled one upon another, so that the traveller 

 might suppose himself in the midst of the ruins of a landslip. 

 A still more remarkable accumulation of similar blocks, in this 

 case consisting of granite, is to be seen above Monthey, to the 

 west of the Rhone, in the lower part of the Canton of Valais. 

 If we go up from Monthey for a walk of about a quarter of an 

 hour, we see on the side of the mountain innumerable fragments 

 of rock, the edges and angles of which are well preserved. 

 Among them are blocks of 8000 or 10,000, and others of from 

 20,000 to 50,000 cubic feet in size ; and one of them (Pierre des 

 Marmettes) is estimated at 60,500 cubic feet, and forms a vast 

 isolated rock. Another (Pierre des Mourguets) consists of two 

 enormous blocks, the upper one of which in its settlement over 

 the lower one has been split throughout its entire length, thus 

 leaving a wide opening. 



The mode of distribution of the erratic blocks in Switzerland 

 is shown by the geological map at the end of this volume. The 

 Miocene country between the Jura and Alps has been left white ; 



* J. de Charpentier has figured several of these erratic blocks in his 'Essai 

 sur les Glaciers ; ' and Bachmann has represented some of the largest belong- 

 ing to the Canton of Berne in ' Die erratischen Findlinge im Canton Bern,' 

 1870. 



