186 Notice of Prof. Forbes 's Travels in the Alps. 



been used in their transport. Indeed, such violence would be quite 

 inconsistent with their appearance and present position." The blocs 

 are distributed in an orderly manner, those from the same origin being 

 generally grouped together. 



The author rejects the idea that these masses were driven along by 

 rushing water, that they slid down an inclined plane, or even that they 

 were transported upon floating rafts of ice, and favors or perhaps es- 

 pouses the theory of their transportation by glaciers that once occupied 

 the whole intervening space between the high Alps and the Jura, filling 

 of course the valley of Switzerland, and crossing its numerous lakes ; the 

 recession being gradual through a long series of years, and depositing 

 the moraines or lines of rocks as they are now found on the Jura, and 

 as they are at this moment in the course of being deposited towards 

 the heads of the valleys. Between the Alps and the lake, of Geneva, 

 into which the Rhone empties, this river passes through a narrow and 

 deep gorge in the mountains at St. Maurice — a grand scene, which is fa- 

 miliar to all Swiss travellers. 



" If the glacier which then filled all the upper and tributary valleys, 

 whose waters now form the current of the Rhone, passed through this 

 place, it must have been violently accumulated in this ravine, and 

 pressed with excessive force upon the bottom and sides of the valley. 

 The marks of glacier wear and polish are here extremely visible, espe- 

 cially on the rocks which occupy the bottom between St. Maurice and 

 Bex ; and they extend to a very great height on the eastern side of the 

 valley, exactly opposite to the village of Bex, where M. de Charpentier 

 pointed out to me the most exquisitely polished surfaces of rocks, quite 

 as smooth as a school-boy's slate, and displaying an artificial section of 

 all the interior veins. After passing the defile of St. Maurice, the gla- 

 cier spreads itself over the enlarged basin immediately beyond, partly 

 formed by the tributary Val d'llliers. The whole face of that valley 

 fronts the tide of ice which then flowed through the rocky defile, (on 

 the theory we are discussing,) and which bore upon it with its lateral 

 moraine. The result is not less surprising than what we have describ- 

 ed on the Jura." 



The rock here too is limestone, and not more than a quarter of the 

 distance from native granite, but the magnitude of the moraine is pro- 

 portionally greater. The " blocs of Monthey," as they are called from 

 the village immediately below them, must be seen to be appreciated. 

 " I wandered amongst them (says the author) a whole forenoon, and 

 though I had previously heard much of their magnitude, I had formed 

 no idea of what I then saw. We have here again a belt or band of 

 blocs, poised as it were on a mountain side, it may be five hundred feet 

 above the alluvial flat through which the Rhone winds below. This 



