1873.] BONNEY ALPINE LAKES. 395 



successively over Werfener Schichten, Hauptdolomit, and Dachstein- 

 kalk, the last being capped on the Steinerne Meer by outliers of 

 beds of Fleckenmergel (Lias). The dip of the strata, as exposed in 

 the cliffs by the side of the lake, is northerly, and we nowhere 

 strike the Werfener Schichten ; but on approaching the northern 

 end of the lake, the strata become tolerably horizontal, the Haupt- 

 dolomit appears from beneath the Dachsteinkalk, and then the 

 Triassic beds, which at Berchtesgaden are above the level of the 

 river. If, then, any part of this disturbance took place after the 

 erosion of the valley, it would explain the formation of the lake. 

 It is of course obvious that this does not amount to proof of the 

 theory which I have advanced. Proof in a country so disturbed as 

 the Alps cannot be obtained by a traveller ; it would require months 

 of careful surveying (wholly out of my power to bestow) to acquire 

 the requisite data : and I doubt much whether they would be ac- 

 quired then ; for flexures and other disturbances of strata are so 

 numerous that I believe it would be quite impossible to give with 

 certainty the date of the last of these, seeing that a movement up 

 and down of a few hundred feet would not very appreciably alter 

 many of the greater curvatures and folds. But I think the above 

 facts show there is nothing unfavourable to the theory ; and if the an- 

 tiquity of the present valley-systems be admitted, and the repeated 

 disturbance of the Alpine chains by earth-movements of greater 

 or less magnitude, it is surely far more probable that, especially in 

 valleys perpendicular to the general strike of the strata, the bed 

 should partake of the flexures due to these movements, should be 

 somewhat depressed at one part and raised at another above the 

 former level, than that it should be moved with perfect regularity 

 over a distance of many miles*. That these disturbances have 

 taken place at earlier dates and to a far greater extent than has 

 been here supposed or required, I trust to be able to show in a 

 future eommunicationf . 



* Instances of this unequal motion are described as occurring in historic 

 times, as at Lima (Lyell's 'Principles,' ch. xxv.), also the "Sunk Country " and 

 Run of Cutch. 



t One lake-region at least may, I think, be fairly claimed in support of my 

 theory, that of Eastern Palestine. We have there that well-known depression 

 in which the Jordan, after passing through the lakes of Huleh (about sea-level) 

 and Gennesaret (700 (?) below the sea, 156 feet deep, Bitter ii. 237), finally 

 empties itself into the Dead Sea, 1296 feet below the level of the ocean, the 

 greatest depth of this huge brine-pit being about 1300 feet. But from the 

 southern end of the Dead Sea a wide, well-marked trough-like valley passes on 

 between the plateau of the Tih and the mountain-district around Petra, rising 

 gradually to an almost imperceptible watershed near the southern end, whence 

 it descends to the Gulf of Akaba. This watershed is obviously a feature long 

 posterior to the erosion of the valley, which is a true river-valley, and must have 

 once been traversed by the Jordan ; perhaps also it sometimes formed a fjord into 

 which the river flowed. 



