2.28 GLACIAL HISTORY. 



no longer invaded the heart of Europe, a peculiar character be- 

 longed to the epoch from the enormous masses of water which 

 were produced by active condensation, originating mighty gla- 

 ciers, and from the elevations and depressions still frequently 

 modifying the- limits of this part of the world. It has been well 

 defined as " the period of inundations." 



If traces of Man belong to the drift-period of the earth's 

 history, human beings were contemporaneous with those troubled 

 times, and would be affected by them. Hence narratives 

 of the Deluge would be current among all ancient peoples 

 among the savages of America as well as among the civilized 

 nations of antiquity. These are obscure memories of ancient 

 races relating to magnificent and real events, but poetically em- 

 bellished and adapted to certain definite localities. Phenomena 

 which may have lasted thousands of years are summed up in a 

 short space of time ; in fact, when the poet wishes to call up a 

 general image before our minds, it is his custom to bring distant 

 events together and combine them within a narrow frame. It 

 is when he succeeds in melting these grains of gold into an 

 harmonious stream that he contributes to the well-being of 

 humanity. 



With the presence of man commences a new world, the world 

 of the intellect, which does not lie within the domain of this 

 work, the scope of which is limited to primaeval formations an- 

 terior to man. 



Homage is here due to the memory of those distinguished 

 persons who, by raising the veil that concealed the Glacial epoch, 

 laid open to the world one of the most wonderful episodes in 

 geological history. 



J. Venetz was the first to demonstrate the analogy of erratic 

 blocks scattered over the plain with the debris on the moraines 

 of glaciers. He first put forward this idea in a treatise dated 

 1821, and afterwards addressed the Swiss Society of Natural 

 History on the subject when it met at St. -Bernard in 1829. A 

 scientific basis was given to the theory by John de Charpentier, 

 in a series of conscientious researches, and by a careful combi- 

 nation of known facts. His views formed the starting-point of 

 researches subsequently carried on by Agassiz, Desor, Escher, 



