62 H. H. Hoicorth — Absence of Glaciation in 



In an elaborate memoir on the geology of European Turkey, 

 piiblislied in 1876, in the 20th volume of the Austrian Geological 

 Society, F. Von Hochstetter quotes Viquesnel for the statement that 

 neither in the Izker valley (vol. ii. p. 373) nor in that of the 

 Eielska Reka above Eilo Selo (vol. ii. p. 374), nor in the upper 

 Mesta valley (vol. ii. p. 366), do these deposits bear any resemblance 

 to moraines. Hochstetter says, " I can confirm this view of Viquesnel," 

 and he goes on to sbow how easy it is sometimes to mistake a great 

 mass of debris, the result of an avalanche, for a moraine, as in the 

 case of a mass of granite blocks 10 meti'es high in the valley of 

 Eielska Eeka, and he concludes, " Der Eilo, das hiJchste Gebirge der 

 ostlichen Turkei, hat ebenso wenig eine Getscherperiode gehabt, 

 als der Balkan" {op. cit. pp. 460-461). 



Neumayr is equally emphatic, and I will quote a passage from his 

 well-known Erdgeschichte, jjublished in 1887: — "No unmistakable 

 traces of glaciation have as yet occurred in the Balkan Peninsula 

 where they quite fail, except in the fact of the occurrence of some 

 mountain lakes which may point to glacier action in the Kilo Moun- 

 tains in South-Western Bulgaria. I myself have explored several 

 of the high districts in Greece, Thessaly, and Macedonia, and neither 

 on the Shar-dagh, near Uzkub, nor on Mount Athos, nor on Olympus, 

 nor in the ^tolian Alps, nor in the Korax Mountains, have 1 found 

 any traces which can be attributed to the work of glaciers [op. cit. 

 pp. 598-599). 



Moving northwards we have, in conclusion, to refer to the 

 Carpathians. Traces of old glacial action have been diligently 

 Bought in this range, and more than one writer has described their 

 existence ; but they seem to be very local, if not doubtful. If they 

 had been glaciated on a considerable scale, assuredly debris from 

 their summits ought to be found dispersed over North Germany, 

 which is literally covered with erratics that have come all the way 

 from Finland and Scandinavia, where the mountains are for the 

 most part very little, if any, higher. 



Neumayr says that traces of glacier action of any importance are 

 only to be found in the upper Tatra, that mass of serrated granite 

 heights which extends between the districts of Zips and Leptan 

 in Northern Hungary and Galicia. Long ago Zeuschner found 

 traces of the moraines of an ancient glacier at Zakspan in the Tatra 

 group, and in later times similar traces have been found on the 

 south side" {op. cit. pp. 597-598). Neumayr gives a good illustration 

 of these mountains, in which I confess I can see no traces of the 

 ice plane in the rugged angular masses of granite, and I very 

 much doubt the character of these so-called moraines which are so 

 obviously inconsistent with the rough rocks above them. I notice 

 also that Neumayr points out as the most striking evidence of 

 old glacial action in the Carpathians the presence there of many 

 mountain lakes, which, following in the footsteps of Eamsay, he 

 attributes to glacial causes, a view in which a large number of 

 geologists cannot share. 



Turning to other parts of the Carpathians, Neumayr says quite 



