﻿MM. SCHLAGINTWEIT ON THE ALPS. 



19 



Altitude. 



Numbers of the Table. Metres. Paris feet. 



IV. Pass between the Eisack and Oetz Valleys. 



170. Jaufenhaus 1969-9 6064-2 



177. Timbls 2527-9 7782-6 



V. Southern Declivities. 



185. Sources of the Drau 1363-6 4197*8 



190. Muhlbach 753-0 2318-2 



The above is accompanied by an appendix on the Grossglockner 

 Peaks. Some remarks upon, and a tabulated view of, the altitudes of 

 twenty-eight of the most important of the Alpine summits conclude 

 this chapter. 



Chapter ix. pp. 198-221, by M. Adolph Schlagintweit, on the 

 Formation of Valleys and the Form of the Mountain-chains of the 

 Alps, succeeds. In following out our special researches, says the 

 author, on the above-mentioned subjects, it has always been our en- 

 deavour to derive therefrom some clue to the causes of the external 

 forms of the valleys and mountains. These researches, therefore, were 

 of twofold importance, both in a geological point of view, and with 

 respect to other branches of physics. The temperature, vegetation, 

 and the whole climate of a mountain-district are intimately connected 

 therewith, whether it consists of a moderately elevated plateau, inter- 

 sected by a few narrow valleys, or whether, as in the case of the Alps, 

 it forms a series of narrow, lofty, barren summits, between which ex- 

 panded valleys pass in all directions. 



Valleys have been sometimes regarded as almost exclusively the 

 effect of vehement floods and torrents ; but in later times causes 

 more complicated and connected with the stratigraphical disposition 

 of the district have been sought for. Bouguet and Buffon believed 

 that in most valleys the salient angles of one side corresponded with 

 the re-entrant angles of the opposite declivity of the valley, and that 

 all valleys have their origin in the serpentine windings of submarine 

 currents ; whilst by Pallas, Saussure, and Werner, diluvial floods, and 

 erosion by streams and by atmospheric precipitations, were regarded 

 as partial causes of the formation of valleys*. A local influence was 

 also ascribed to a partial overturning and breaking up of the strata f. 

 We must regard as erroneous the opinions, that the manifold forms 

 of valleys can be comprised in one point of view, and that reduced, 

 with few modifications, to one cause. One easily understands how 

 the great valleys excavated by rivers continually eroding strata more 

 or less soft and destructible are distinguishable from the ramifying 

 valleys of elevated districts, which sometimes are widened out into 

 basins and sometimes struggle through narrow ravines. In the 

 latter, mountain masses of ever-varying profile rise on both sides 

 many thousand feet high, whilst in the former case, above the slopes 

 on either side we meet with nearly horizontal plateaux, but slightly 

 raised above the valleys. 



* Compare Voigt on the Formation of Valleys, 1791. 

 f D'Aubuisson, Traite de Geognosie, i. 1819. 



c 2 



