AMONG GLACIERS RECENT AND EXTINCT. 
175. 
stranded against the hills that bound the Ehone valley. Most 
of them are of granite, and, if not quarried for building pur- 
poses, there was one which was calculated to contain some 
20,000 tons of granite. They lie perched several hundred feet 
above the Ehone, and are the relics of a great glacier that once 
filled the valley, during the period known to geologists as the 
Glacial Epoch. N or is the evidence of the former great exten- 
sion of glaciers deficient near Chamounix for those who look 
out for such proofs. As already observed, high above the Mer 
de Glace may be seen blocs perche, moutoneed rocks, and 
moraine matter piled high above the present glacier . Again, 
as we journey from Chamounix to Martigny up a beautiful 
valley skirted by pine woods, we see the picturesque village of 
Argentiere opposite the Silver glacier, which descends to the 
valley from the magnificent Aiguille which towers above. 
Beyond this glacier is a great terminal moraine, forming a 
wooded barrier right across the valley, save on the left bank, 
where it is cut across by the river. This terminal moraine 
must have been piled up by a great glacier which once came- 
down the valley from the Col de Balme, for it is made up 
chiefly of erratics derived from that district. The ice is gone, 
and in the place thereof we have the pine woods, the village, 
and the rushing river, with marks of glaciation everywhere on 
the sides of the valley. Beyond Argentiere, too, up the valley 
of Berard, on the left hand in going to the Tete Noire, are 
some large blocs perches ranged in lines at a height of more 
than a thousand feet above the valley. These are erratics which 
were stranded where they now rest by a stupendous glacier 
which swept down from the mountains from the direction of 
Trient, and the mountains above the Valorcine, and of which 
now not a fragment of ice is left. But we will carry our 
investigations still farther. At the lower end of the great 
Italian lakes, such as Lago Maggiore, Como, Garda, and others,, 
there are immense moraines which have been brought by extinct 
glaciers from the upper Alpine valleys far above the lakes. 
Professor Eamsay suggested that the origin of all these lakes is 
owing to the crushing and grinding action of enormous glaciers 
descending from the high Alps, which were several thousand 
feet higher during the intense cold of the glacial epoch than at 
present. At all events, it is certain that glaciers once passed 
over the sites these great lakes now occupy. At Isola Madre, 
one of the beautiful Borromean islands in the Lago Maggiore,, 
we found the rock surface moutoneed, and stranded on it are 
fragments of granite and other erratics. The beautiful gardens 
there, with terraces of orange-trees, lemon-trees, and citrons, 
pomegranates, oleanders, and magnolias, are situated upon 
a roche moutonee of a great glacier which once swept down 
