78 STUDIES, SCIP:NTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



British glaciers, and if the former could have been pro- 

 duced by a flood so could the latter. But the American 

 terminal moraine runs across the country almost irrespec- 

 tive of its contour, and is often as well marked on plateaus 

 as in valleys and on the intermediate slopes. Moreover, 

 this moraine often lies on the southern slope of the hills 

 draining towards the Mississippi valley ; and we are asked 

 to believe that a flood vast enough to carry gravel and 

 rocks for hundreds of miles to such a position, left them all 

 stranded on a slope down which it must have been rush- 

 ing with increased velocity and without hindrance towards 

 the Gulf of Mexico ! So far as I know, Sir Henry 

 Howorth is absolutely alone among living writers in his 

 diluvial theories, and I only give this brief statement of 

 their overwhelming impossibilities because his book is so 

 interesting, and his assertions that his theory explains all 

 the facts are so confident and so often repeated, that they 

 are likely to confuse the judgment of readers who have 

 not paid special attention to the subject. 



The Rhone Glacier and Ice-sheet. 



Returning to the main question, of the possibility of 

 glaciers or ice-sheets moving over long distances of gener- 

 ally level ground with intervening hills and valleys, there 

 is an important piece of evidence, the bearing of which 

 appears to have been overlooked by objectors. The former 

 existence of the great Rhone glacier depositing erratics on 

 the slopes of the Jura from beyond Geneva on the south- 

 west to Soleure on the north-east, is universally admitted. 

 This glacier passed out of the gorge between the Dent 

 du Midi and the Dent de Morcles, and a little below St. 

 Maurice entered on the alluvial plain which extends 

 to the lake. From this point to Geneva, a distance of 

 about 60 miles, may be considered a level plain, the de- 

 scent into the lake being balanced by the ascent out of 

 it. Yet it is admitted that the glacier did move over this 

 distance, since erratics which can be traced to their 

 source on the left of the valley below Martigny are found 

 near that city. But the main part of the glacier curved 



