Mild Polar Climates. 287 



have been found. Some of these blocks are of Immense size. 

 Many of the stones in the deposit are polished and striated in 

 a manner similar to those found in the boulder-clay of this 

 country. It has been shown by Gastaldi that these blocks 

 have all been derived from the outer ridge of the Alps on the 

 Italian side, namely from the range extending from Ivrea 

 to the Lago Maggiore, and, consequently, they must have 

 travelled from twenty to eighty miles. So abundant are these 

 large blocks that extensive quarries have been opened in the 

 hills for the sake of procuring them. The stratification of 

 the beds amongst which the blocks occur sufficiently indicates 

 aqueous action and the former presence of the sea. That 

 glaciers from the southern Alps actually reached to the sea 

 and sent adrift their icebergs over what are now the sunny 

 plains of Northern Italy, is proof that during that cold period 

 the climate must have been very severe. One remarkable 

 circumstance, indicating not only the glacial condition of the 

 bed in which the blocks occur, but also that this glaciation 

 was the result of eccentricity, is the fact that the bed is wholly 

 destitute of organic remains, while they are found abundantly 

 both in the underlying and overlying beds. 



Evidence of glaciation during the Eocene period, as is also 

 well known, is found in the "Flysch" of Switzerland. On 

 the north side of the Alps, from Switzerland to Vienna, and 

 also near Genoa, there is a sandstone a few thousand feet in 

 thickness, containing enormous blocks of Oolitic limestone 

 and granite. Many of these blocks are upwards of 10 feet in 

 length, and one at Halekeren, near the Lake of Thun, is 105 

 feet long, 90 feet broad, and 45 feet in thickness. The block 

 is of a granite of a peculiar kind which cannot be matched 

 anywhere in the Alps. Similar blocks are found in beds of 

 the same age in the Apennines and in the Carpathians. The 

 glacial origin of this deposit is further evinced by the fact 

 that it is wholly destitute of organic remains. One circum- 

 stance, which indicates that this glaciation was due to eccen- 

 tricity, is the fact that the strata most nearly associated with 

 the u FlysclC are rich in Echinoderms of the Spatangus family, 

 Which have a decided tropical aspect. This is what we ought, 

 of course, a priori, to expect if the glaciation was the result of 

 eccentricity, for the more severe a cold period of a glacial 

 epoch is, the warmer will be the periods which immediately 

 precede and succeed. 



Some writers endeavour to account for those glacial phe- 

 nomena, without any reference to the influence of high 

 eccentricity, by the assumption that the Alps were much 

 more elevated during the Tertiary period than they are at 



