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On the former Changes of the Alps. 247 



changes of the surface than submarine life : for here we have a 

 fauna which is Pliocene in the order of the strata, and yet is not 

 Eocene in its animal and vegetable contents. 



A certain number of the more remarkable animals that h'ved 

 during this younger tertiary age were then adverted to^ such as 

 the Rhinoceros and other large quadrupeds, the fossil Viverrine 

 fox (the original of which was on the table,) the huge Salaman- 

 der (Andrias Scheuchzeri) and a Chelydra which had been de- 

 scribed as analogous to the snapping turtle of the southern states 

 of North America. These, with quantities of plants, including 

 small palms, were all indicatives of a warm and genial climate; 

 and on such sure grounds the second diagram placed the Alps 

 before the spectators as covered with a suitable vegetation, and 

 with several of the above mentioned animals in the foreground. 



Having satisfied himself, in common with M. Studer, M. Escher, 

 and all the geologists who have well explored the Alps, that every 

 where along the northern flank a terrific dislocation has occurred, 

 amounting in many places to a total inversion of mountains, be- 

 tween the older tertiary and those younger deposits which were 

 accumulated under the waters during the period he had just been 

 describing, Sir Roderick then briefly pointed out what he had de- 

 nionstrated in detail elsewhere : viz. that the sands and pebble- 

 beds of that age had been suddenly heaved up from beneath the 

 Waters all along the outer or northern flank of the chain, so as to 

 forrn mountainous masses, the inverted and truncated ends of 

 which had been forced under the edges of the very rocks out of 

 whose detritus they had been formed. 



Before this great revolution had taken place, no large erratic 

 blocks were known, but after it, they became common, and were 

 the necessary production of that intensely cold climate to which 

 the Alps were then subjected; a change, of which their surface 

 bears distinct evidence. 



During the same period, the low countries of northern Europe 

 Were covered by an Arctic sea. If such waters then extended to 

 the Jura and the Alps, icebergs and rafts must have been detached 

 from the latter, carrying away blocks of stone northwards, to be 

 dropped at intervals, just as it has been demonstrated that the 

 Scandinavian blocks were dropped in Prussia, Poland, and the low 

 lands of Russia, when all those regions were under the influence 

 of an Arctic sea. Bavaria, and the lower parts of the Cantons 

 ^aud, Neufchatel, and Berne, were, it is supposed, then covered 

 oy waters which bathed the foot of the Alps. 



That the change from a former genial climate to the first great 

 period of cold was a sudden one is further sustained by the fact, 

 that the inclined strata in which the Mediterranean animals are 

 buried, are at once covered transgressivelp and u7ico7iformabhjhy 



other beds of gravel, shingle, and mud, in which the remains of 

 plants and animals are those of a cold climate. 



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