146 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



Moselle, and the Meuse, being more or less abundantly charged 

 with it. It spreads, in short, like a great winding-sheet over 

 the country — lying thickly in the valleys and dying off upon 

 the higher slopes and plateaux. Wide and deep accumulations 

 appear likewise in the Ehone valley, as also in several other 

 river-valleys of France, as in those of the Seine, the Saone, and 

 the Garonne, and the same is the case with many of the valleys 

 of Middle Germany, such as those of the Fulda, the Werra, the 

 Weser, and the upper reaches of the great basin of the Elbe. 

 It must not be supposed that the loss is restricted to valleys 

 and depressions in the surface of the ground. It is true that it 

 attains in these its greatest thickness, but extensive accumula- 

 tions may often be followed far into the intermediate hilly 

 districts and over the neighbouring plateaux. Thus the Oden- 

 wald, the Taunus, the Vogelgebirge, and other upland tracts, are 

 cloaked with loss up to a considerable height. Crossing into 

 the drainage-system of the Danube, we find that this large river 

 and many of its tributaries flow through vast tracts of loss. 

 Lower Bavaria is thickly coated with it, and it attains a great 

 development in Bohemia, Upper and Lower Austria, and Moravia 

 — in the latter country rising to an elevation of 1300 feet. It 

 is equally abundant in Hungary, Galicia, Bukowina, and Tran- 

 sylvania. From the Danubian flat-lands and the low grounds 

 of Galicia it stretches into the valleys of the Carpathians, up to 

 heights of 800 and 2000 feet. In some cases it goes even higher 

 — namely, to 3000 feet, according to Zeuschner, and to 4000 or 

 5000 feet, according to Korzistka. These last great elevations, 

 it will be understood, are in the upper valleys of the northern 

 Carpathians. In Boumania loss is likewise plentiful, but it has 

 not been observed south of the Balkans. East of the Car- 

 pathians, that is to say, in the regions watered by the Dniester, 

 the Dnieper, and the Don, loss appears also to be wanting, and 

 to be represented by those great Steppe -deposits which are 

 known as " Tchernozem " or black-earth, and to which I shall 

 refer presently. 



Continental geologists speak of " hill-loss " and " valley-loss," 



