414 The American Naturalist. [May, 



land, and has therefore played an insignificant part in causing the 

 three stages of the lake herein described. 



" The bulk of the moraines is many times that of the beach deposits, 

 though no longer time was involved in their deposition. The ice-sheet 

 was therefore a much more efficient transporting agency than the lake 



" The extreme scarcity of evidence of life in these waters, though 

 negative in its nature, and therefore to be taken with caution, is quite 

 accordant with the theory deduced from the relation of the beaches to 

 the moraines, viz : that the beaches are of glacial age. " 



Glacial Movements.— Prince Roland Bonaparte has been carry- 

 ing on some extensive researches on the advance and recession of the 

 glaciers of the French Alps. His work is thus referred to by the 

 Revue Srientifique, April 9, 1892. 



In order to express in figures the extent of glacial movements, 

 Prince Roland Bonaparte, in 1890, had a certain number of marks put 

 at the foot of sixteen large glaciers of Pelvoux. Whenever it was 

 possible he had made a detailed topographical plan of the front of the 

 glacier which, at the same time, was photographed from a point care- 

 fully marked. These operations repeated each year will furnish, and 

 have already furnished precise data as to the oscillations of the glaciers, 

 they will some day, perhaps, show a connection between their move- 

 ments and the general phenomena of the atmosphere. For the present, 

 the results which he has obtained from sixteen glaciers, from 1 to 

 kilometers in length, show that during 1890 and 1891 several of them 

 have ceased to recede and have become stationary, which indicates the 

 close of a period of general recession which began about 35 years ago. 

 But the period of forward movement in the glaciers of Pel' 

 recent, for the facts observed go to show that the first glaciers winch 

 have advanced commenced to do so within the last few years. 



The exact measures taken by Prince Roland Bonaparte are supple- 

 mented by the observations made at his request by the guides of t a^ 

 region in 1891 ; these extend over twenty-eight other glaciers o 

 Pelvoux and can be summed up as follows: Eight glaciers advancing, 

 twenty glaciers receding, and ten glaciers stationary. Finally, in ^ 

 the author marked fifteen glaciers in Savoy, and twenty m ^ 

 Pyrenees. In these two regions the greater part of the glaciers a 

 still receding, but they are increasing at their source, which indicate 

 a speedy change to an advance. 



