3 2 4 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



rearranged moraine, profonde were found remains of a small 

 ruminant, pieces of wood, and a fragment of a reindeer's horn. 

 As to the glacial character of the remainee moraine there could 

 be no doubt ; notwithstanding its treatment by torrential water, 

 some of its stones still retained their striae, while the rounded 

 and moutonnSe aspect of the contiguous mountain-slopes spoke 

 to the former passage of a massive glacier. Again, he remarks 

 that along the right banks of the Neste and the Garonne, 

 between the Barthe-de-Neste and the Garonne, the hills are 

 moutonntes up to a height which was certainly not attained by 

 the glaciers of the latest glacial epoch. In short, it is clear 

 that during some early glacial epoch, the glaciers of the Pique 

 and the Garonne extended towards the north considerably 

 beyond the valley of Labroquere ; that subsequently they 

 retired, and their moraine profonde was denuded and rearranged 

 by torrential action ; that afterwards they again advanced, but 

 not to so great a distance into the low grounds. 1 The fact 

 that the terminal moraines of the older glaciers have been 

 obliterated, as is likewise to some extent the case with those of 

 the Ehone, upon the plains of France, is further proof of the 

 length of time which must have intervened between the two 

 epochs of glaciation. 2 



Some account has already been given of the great limestone- 

 breccias of Gibraltar, attributed by Professor Eamsay and my- 



1 Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 3 e Ser. t. ii. pp. 503, 507. 



2 M. Piette and one or two other French geologists, influenced apparently by 

 Stopanni's alleged discovery that the great moraines upon the plains of Northern 

 Italy are of Pliocene age, have assigned to the same period the oldest moraines of 

 the Pyrenean region referred to above, as well as those of the ancient Rhone 

 glacier which occur in the neighbourhood of Bourg and Lyons. Stopanni bases 

 his opinion on the fact that many shells of Pliocene species occur along with 

 glaciated stones in the morainic deposits near Como. (See " II mare glaciale ai 

 piedi delle Alpi," Rivista Italiana, August 1874; "Sui Raporti del Terreno 

 glaciale col Pliocenico nei dintorni di Como," Atti\Soc. Ital. di Scienzi Natur., 

 April 1875 ; Geologia d' Italia, Pte. 2 a , p. 131. ) His views have been supported 

 by several observers, f more especially by Desor (Le Paysage Morainique, 1875) 

 and Renevier {Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 3 e Ser. t. iv. p. 187). On the other hand, 

 they are opposed by Riitimeyer '( Ueber Pliocen und Eisperiode auf beiden Seiten 

 der Alpen, p. 187) and Mayer (Bull. Soc. Giol. France, 3 e Ser. t. iv. p. 199), — the 



atter of whom especially has shown in the clearest manner that the shells 

 referred to have been derived from a pre-existing deposit — they are the relics of 



