.892.] 
407 
[Foerste. 
this cirque. In several fine cases, strata with marked peculiar- 
ities approach close to the water’s edge and show an agreement 
of strike and dip which is very interesting. The above notes, 
although by no means exhaustive, are still sufficient to illustrate 
the character and relative weight of the evidence which denies 
the existence of faults as chief factors in the formation of the 
Bernese cirques. 
8c. Fractures. It is difficult to believe that closed fractures or 
seams could have had anything to do with the location of cirques , 
since there are so many of these seams on the mountain sides, and 
the existing smaller streams traverse them at all angles as if their 
courses were perfectly independent of the existence of seams. 
Open cracks or gaping fissures would have offered more ready op- 
portunity for the location of streams, but if such gaps ever 
existed it seems curious that each gap should have been deep 
enough to reach the synclinal valley below, and then to serve as 
drainage channels. If gaping cracks played such an important 
part, why should they not be much more frequent in the structure 
of the Jura Mountains, and why should they not frequently have 
extended only half way down from the crests of the folds, and 
still permit their ready detection on careful search. That every 
gap should have become a transverse connecting water channel 
seems extremely improbable. Some would have remained as 
“wind gaps.” The Tavannes cirque might be cited as evidence 
of such a crack left as a wind gap, but the great erosion there 
displayed gives rise to a belief that a stream of considerable 
volume once traversed the same, capable of carrying away the 
eroded materials. Besides the Pierre Pertuis must ever remain 
as conclusive evidence that no gaping crack ever existed here. 
And the rocky bed of the Suxe where this stream dashes through 
the gorge in the Boujean cirque shows not the slightest evidence 
of a once gaping crack. On the other hand, the walls forming 
the gorge still show in places concave depressions upon their 
sides, far above the stream, places where once the waters of 
the Suxe had dashed while it was cutting down its channel. 
Some of these concave depressions look like pot-holes, which 
under continued erosion have lost the parts nearest the stream’s 
center, and now appear only in section ; the remainder has all 
been cut away. 
However, another view may be taken of the case. If gaping 
