THE RHINE. 
189 
Swiss valleys and carried off to the south certain 
streams which were originally tributaries of the 
northern rivers. The Scaradra, for instance, to 
judge from its upper river terraces, formerly ran by 
Motterasco and Greina, into the Val Somvix, and so 
to the Rhine at Surrhein. The Carassina again, 
which now makes a sharp turn and flows into the 
Brenno near Olivone, ran north into the Val Camadra 
and by the Greina Pass to Val Somvix. This sug- 
gestion may seem at first improbable, but river 
terraces can be traced to a height of 2200 to 
2400 metres. 
The upper part of the Rhine,* as far as Dis- 
sentis, presents in many places w'ell marked gravel 
terraces, which probably belonged to the period when 
the river was damned by the great rockfall of Flims. 
They are not mere river cones, but regularly arranged 
terraces, with a steep fall towards the main river. 
They cany us back to a time when the masses of 
debris which fell from the sides, or were brought 
down by the lateral streams, were subjected to a 
process of regular rearrangement, and they attain 
such dimensions that the villages all stand on them. 
The present state of things is very different; erosion 
* Riithneyer, Eiszeit und Pleiocene auf beiden Seiten der 
Alpen, 
