THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARTH-MOVEMENT HYPOTHESIS. 229 



torrential and fluviatile deposits laid down before advancing 

 and retreating glaciers; and it is especially to be noted that 

 each sheet of gravel, after its accumulation, was much denuded 

 and cut through by river-action. In a word, as Penck and 

 others have shown, the valleys of Upper Bavaria have been 

 occupied by glaciers at three successive epochs — each 

 separated from the other by a period during which much 

 river-gravel was deposited and great erosion of the valley- 

 bottoms was effected. 



On the Italian side of the Alps, similar evidence of climatic 

 changes is forthcoming. The lignites and lacustrine strata 

 of Val Gandino, and of Val Borlezza, as I have elsewhere 

 shown,* are clearly of interglacial age. From these deposits 

 many organic remains have been obtained — amongst the 

 animals being Rhinoceros hemitmchus and R. leptorhinus. 

 According to Sordelli, the plants indicate a climate as genial 

 as that of the plains of Lombardy and Venetia, and warmer 

 therefore than that of the upland valleys in which the 

 interglacial beds occur. Professor Penck informs me that 

 some time ago he detected evidence in the district of Lake 

 Garda of three successive glacial epochs — the evidence being 

 of the same character as that recognised in the valleys of the 

 Bavarian Alps. 



In the glaciated districts of France similar phenomena are 

 met with. Thus in Cantal, according to M. Rames,f the 

 glacial deposits belong to two separate epochs. The older 

 morainic accumulations are scattered over the surface of the 

 plateau of Archaean schistose rocks, and extend up the 

 slopes of the great volcanic cone of that region to heights of 

 2,300 to 3,300 feet. One of the features of these accumula- 

 tions are the innumerable gigantic erratics, known to the 

 country folk as cimetiere des enrages. Sheets of fluvio-glacial 

 gravel are also associated with the moraines, and it is worthy 

 of note, that both have the aspect of considerable age — they 

 have evidently been subjected to much denudation. In the 

 valleys of the same region occurs a younger series of glacial 

 deposits, consisting of conspicuous lateral and terminal 

 moraines, which, unlike the older accumulations, have a very 

 fresh and well-preserved appearance. With them, as with 

 the older moraines, fluvio-glacial gravels are associated. 

 M. Rames shows that the interval that supervened between 



* Prehistoric Europe, p. 303. 



t Bull. Soc. Geol. de France, 1884. 



