382 PROCEEDINGS Of THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [April 9. 



April 9, 1873. 



Thomas Macdougall Smith, Esq., 1 Chapel Place, Duke Street, 

 Westminster; Archibald Liversidge, Esq., Associate of the Royal 

 School of Mines, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Lecturer on 

 Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Sidney, N.S.W. ; Mat- 

 thew Robert Bigge, Esq., J. P., of Islip Grange, Thrapston ; and 

 John Milne, Esq., 3 Hermitage Yillas, Richmond, were elected 

 Eellows of the Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. Lakes of the North-eastern Alps, and their bearing on the Gla- 

 cier-erosion Theory. By the Rev. T. G. Bonney, M.A., F.G.S., 

 Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge. 



The lakes in many mountain-districts" have been attributed to the 

 exeavating effect of ice in a period when glaciers extended far 

 beyond their present limits ; and this theory has been applied by its 

 author, Professor Ramsay, to several of the best-known lakes of the 

 Western and Central Alps in a very interesting and suggestive paper 

 communicated to the Society, March 5, 1862*. Notwithstanding 

 the skill with which this theory has been advocated by its author, 

 and the support which it has received from many competent judges 

 at home and abroad, I have always felt, in common with not a few 

 who have made Alpine physiography their special studyf, that it 

 -did not satisfactorily explain all the phenomena ; and each visit that 

 I have paid to the Alps has strengthened this opinion. 



Professor Ramsay applied his theory chiefly to the lakes of the 

 Western and Central Alps. The following paper attempts to examine 

 those of the North-eastern Alps, especially of the Salzkammergut, 

 the great lake-region of the Eastern district, in order to ascertain 

 whether they also can be attributed to the excavating power of 

 glaciers. 



As the general circumstances of climate and orography are fairly 

 similar throughout the great Alpine chain, it may reasonably be 

 expected that any explanation suggested for the lake-basins of one 

 district should apply also to another ; and from this we may 

 conclude that, if any explanation which seems possible for one district 

 fail when tested in another, it cannot be the correct one for either. 

 I do not, indeed, concede that the glacial-erosion theory satisfactorily 

 accounts for all the phenomena in the lake-basins of the western 

 and central districts ; but as that question has already attracted 

 much attention, I pass it by for the sake of brevity, and am content 

 to rest my case upon the Eastern Alps alone. 



In order to demonstrate, as I hope to do, that these East- Alpine lakes 

 cannot be regarded as in any sense primarily due to glacial erosion, 



* " On the Glacial Origin of certain Lakes in Switzerland, &c," by A. C. 

 Aamsay, P.E.S., President of the Geological Society, &c. Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soe. vol. xviii. p. 185. 



t Ampng these I may name Sir C. Lyell, M. Favre, Mr. J. Ball. Mr. E. 

 Whymper. Mr. W. Mathews, and the late' Sir E. I. Murchison. 



