THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 209 



Enormous ice-streams at the same time occupied all the 

 main valleys on the southern side of the Alps, and, descending 

 to the plains of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Venetia, piled up 

 huge moraines of gravel, sand, blocks, and debris, some of which 

 would in this country pass for considerable hills. The beautiful 

 lakes of Northern Italy during the climax of the Ice Age had no 

 existence, their basins being occupied by massive glaciers. From 

 the Stura in the Maritime Alps of Sardinia, east as far as the 

 Mur in Styria, we find abundant traces in almost every valley 

 of the former presence of great glaciers. 1 The ice-streams which 

 descended from the northern slopes of the Alps appear in some 

 cases to have become confluent upon the low grounds, so as to 

 form a more or less continuous mer de glace, sloping outwards 

 from the base of the mountains, and the same was the case with 

 some of those which flowed towards the south, especially in 

 Lombardy. 2 



The smaller mountain-groups of Central Europe had also at 

 the same time their perennial snow-fields and glaciers. Numer- 

 ous moraines of local glaciers occur in the Jura, as was first 

 indicated many years ago by MM. Pidancy and Lory, 3 and 



deutsch. und dsterreich. Alpenv., Bd. i. p. 583; Stark: Ibid., 1873, p. 67; 

 Pichler: Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, etc., 1872, p. 193; Giimbel : Sitzungsb. 

 der math.-phys. Klasse der konigl. -bayerisch. Akad. der Wissensch. Munchen, 

 1872, p. 224; Zittel : Ibid., 1874, p. 252; Hilber : Jahrb. der Tc.-Tc. geolog. 

 Reichsanst, Bd. xxix. p. 537. A good general description and sketch-map of the 

 ancient glaciers of Switzerland is given by Dr. F. Kinkelin, Bericht iiber die 

 SencTcenberg. naturforsch. Ges., 1874-75, p. 77 ; see also Heer's Urwelt der Schweiz, 

 and Favre's Recherches Geologiques, etc. 



1 Dr. Pilar mentions that even in the Agram hills traces of glacial action are 

 met with : Verhandl. der k.-k. geolog. Reichsanst., 1876, p. 233. 



2 For descriptions of ancient glaciers of south side of Alps, see Martins and 

 Gastaldi : Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 2 e Ser. t. vii. p. 554 ; Omboni : Atti della 

 Soc. Ital. di Scienze Nat. in Milano, vol. ii. p. 6, with map of the ancient glacier- 

 system of Lombardy ; see also Op. cit., vol. iii. p. 337 ; Mortillet : Ibid., vol. iii. 

 (1861) p. 44, with a general map of the ancient Italian glaciers ; Stopanni : . Geo- 

 logia d' Italia, Pte. 2 a - The ancient glacier of the Drave is described by Hofer : 

 Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, etc., 1873, p. 128 ; see also Dr. Taramelli's paper : 

 Atti Soc. Ital. Sci. Nat. Milano, vol. xiii. (1870) p. 224. A general map showing 

 the extent of glacial deposits on both sides of the Alps accompanies Rutimeyer's 

 paper : Ueber Pliocen und Eisperiode auf beiden Seiten der Alpen, 1876. 



3 Ch. Martins : Annates de la Soc. d' Emulation des Vosges, t. vi. (1847). A 

 more detailed description of the glaciers of the Jura is given by Dr. Benoit : Actes 



P 



