David Milne-Home on Ancient Glaciers. 55 
one of them a good-sized summer house has been built. They 
are heaped one upon another in such a way as to suggest very 
vivid ideas of the stupendous power which was here at work. 
I found about twenty masons employed in mercilessly blasting 
these gigantic blocks, in order to convert them into gate- 
posts and window-soles. The people seemed well acquainted 
with the spots where the blocks occur, and assured me that 
whilst there were none to the south of Monthey, they ex- 
tended all the way to near the Lake of Geneva, a distance 
of about three miles, and at about the same height above the 
Rhone, viz., 300 feet. The hill at Monthey faces the S8.E., 
and is so situated that any glacier descending the valley 
would abut upon it. 
4. There is one circumstance connected with the erratic 
blocks which much arrested my attention, and which I think 
has not received sufficient consideration. I refer to the enor- 
mous accumulations of sand, gravel, and clay existing in 
Low Switzerland, and to the fact that very many of the blocks 
are buried in these pleistocene strata. The well-known granite 
blocks of Steinhoff, near Soleure, which I visited, are evi- 
dently imbedded in these strata, in that neighbourhood largely 
developed, as may be seen from the numerous quarries of sand 
and gravel. Along lakes of Bienne, Neufchatel, and Geneva, 
there are whole hills of sand, gravel, and clay, with reference 
to which I made following notes :— 
Bienne Lake.—The little island of St Pierre is a recent de- 
posit of clay, reaching to a height of at least eighty feet above 
level of lake. In the recent cuttings along north bank for 
railway, beds of gravel are cut through containing alpine 
blocks. 
Neufchatel Lake.—A few miles west of the town of Neuf- 
chatel, near Columbier station, there are stratified beds of sand 
and gravel to a height of about 500 feet above lake, which 
cover smooth beds of Jura limestone. These beds contain 
occasionally large alpine blocks, most of them rounded. At 
Gorgier, and various other places between Neufchatel and 
Iverdon, these appearances repeated. 
In district between the lakes of Neufchatel and Geneva, 
_ there are on south side of railway several hills of fine gravel 
