Correspondence. 263 
from tin- pen of its author, has been furnished for the American Geol- 
ogist, and will be used at a future writing. The paper was illustrated 
by maps of the mountain systems of Asia and Europe. The gist of the 
paper was thai the Carpathians and the Ural range were modeled by 
horizontal movements, unlike in direction but similar in character to 
those which had exercised a change in Europe when the Alps and the 
Pyrenees were involved. A great horizontal movemenl in the north of 
Scotland is indicated before the Devonian age. He summed up a most 
interesting memoir by declaring that what we call deformation is really 
conformation of the crust of the earth and is but a step in the gradual 
progress which is towards a final contour far from being reached yet. 
[Applause. ] 
Prof. Heim then gave a very clear statement of the geology in the 
neighborhood of Zurich, declaring his old professor, A. Escher. whose 
bust overlooked the scene, was right when lie declared in 1846 (?) that. 
Zurich is built on a moraine, and that the hills or mountains in its 
neighborhood are moraine phenomena. The key to this geology is the 
erosion of the Molasse of tJetliberg and Ziirichberg (lower Miocene) and 
the invasion of this depression by glacial drift. On t he summits of the 
mountains near the town over 60 meters of moraine covers the Molasse 
in place. Thi' best arable lands an- found on the upper moraine. The 
strongest springs are found in the lower grund moraine and are fed by 
water which has trickled through the upper moraine. The Zurich lake 
bottom was not ploughed out by glacial action, because (amongsi many 
other reasons given) there are islands at one end of it with a depth of 
120 meters of water between them, and. by reason of the direction from 
which the glacier must have come, they could not have remained had a 
great force been employed to dig out the lake bottom - . Nor can the basin 
be explained by a fault or crack, because the strata of the Molasse on 
the two sides give evidence against any dislocation. The basin is due 
to a depression or sinking Of the strata on the end nearest to the Alps 
and is doubt less connected with the sinking of the entire Alps system. 
There are also clearlj marked three separate glacial epochs. 
This lecture commenced with a eulogy of the speaker's former profes- 
sor (Escher) and of a young pupil of his named Wettstein, who lost 
his life by a fall in the mountains. Both of them were said to have 
contributed much to the clear understanding of the geology of Zurich. 
In the evening the restaurant of the Ziirichhorn. situated on the east 
bank of the lake and about a kilometer from Zurich, was indicated aSH 
place of informal meeting for the purpose of dining, and most of the 
members of the congress went there and chatted till 9 or lOo'clock, re- 
turning either on foot, ill the) rain car, of in the boat . 
Thursday, Aug. 30, 1894. 
The council met at s o'clock in the Polytechnikum, The president 
ottered the com pt e- re i id ii of I he pre vi ous session, and was a boii I to with- 
draw it as accepted, before it was discussed, when sir Archibald Geikie 
moved an amendment to the effect that the rule about language applies 
