CHAP. XV.
EXTINCT GLACIERS OF SWITZERLAND.
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CHAPTER XV.
EXTINCT GLACIERS OF THE ALPS AND THEIR CHRONOLOGICALRELATION TO THE HITMAN PERIOD.
EXTINCT GLACIERS OF SWITZERLAND —ALPINE ERRATIC BLOCKS ON
THE JURA—TRANSPORTED BV GLACIERS AND NOT BY FLOATING ICE-
EXTINCT GLACIERS OF THE ITALIAN SIDE OF THE ALPS — THEORY OFTHE ORIGIN OF LAKE-BASINS BY THE EROSIVE ACTION OF GLACIERSCONSIDERED — SUCCESSIVE PHASES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF GLACIALACTION IN THE ALPS — LACUSTRINE FORMATIONS OF INTERGLACIALAGE — PROBABLE RELATION OF THESE TO THE EARLIEST KNOWN DATEOF MAN — COLD PERIOD IN SICILY AND STRIA,
W E have seen in the preceding chapters that the mountainsof Scandinavia , Scotland , and North Wales have served,during the glacial period, as so many independent centresfor the dispersion of erratic blocks, just as at present theice-covered continent of North Greenland is sending downice in all directions to the coast, and filling Baffin’s Baywith floating bergs, many of them laden with fragments ofrocks.
Another great European centre of ice-action during thepleistocene period was the Alps of Switzerland , and I shallnow proceed to consider the chronological relations of theextinct Alpine glaciers to those of more northern countriespreviously treated of.
The Alps lie far south of the limits of the northern driftdescribed in the foregoing pages, being situated between the44th and 47th degrees of north latitude. On the flanks of
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