In this section, as in those at Dürnten and Utznach, we have
conclusive evidence of two glacial epochs, sharply marked off the one
from the other. Nor does that evidence stand alone, for at various
points between Lake Geneva and the lower valley of the Inn similar
interglacial deposits occur. Sometimes these appear at the foot of
the mountains, as at Mörschweil on Lake Constance; sometimes just
within the mountain area, as at Imberg; sometimes far in the heart
of the Alpine Lands, as at Innsbruck. Professor Penck has further
shown, and his observations have been confirmed by Brückner, Blaas,
and Böhm, that massive sheets of fluviatile gravel are frequently
met with throughout the valleys of the Alps, occupying interglacial
positions. These gravels are exactly comparable to the interglacial
gravels of the Sonthofen sections. And it has been demonstrated that
they occur on two horizons, separated the one from the other by
characteristic ground-moraine, or boulder-clay. The lower gravels
rest on ground-moraine, and the upper gravels are overlaid by sheets
of the same kind of glacial detritus. In short, three separate and
distinct ground-moraines are recognised. The gravels, one cannot doubt,
are simply the torrential and fluviatile deposits laid down before
advancing and retreating glaciers; and it is especially to be noted
that each sheet of gravel, after its accumulation, was much denuded
and cut through by river-action. In a word, as Penck and others have
shown, the valleys of Upper Bavaria have been occupied by glaciers at
three successive epochs--each separated from the other by a period
during which much river-gravel was deposited and great erosion of the
valley-bottoms was effected.
On the Italian side of the Alps, similar evidence of climatic changes
is forthcoming. The lignites and lacustrine strata of Val Gandino,
and of Val Borlezza, as I have elsewhere shown,[BK] are clearly of
interglacial age. From these deposits many organic remains have been
obtained--amongst the animals being _Rhinoceros hemitoechus_ and _R.
leptorhinus_. According to Sordelli, the plants indicate a climate
as genial as that of the plains of Lombardy and Venetia, and warmer
therefore than that of the upland valleys in which the interglacial
beds occur. Professor Penck informs me that some time ago he detected
evidence in the district of Lake Garda of three successive glacial
epochs--the evidence being of the same character as that recognised in
the valleys of the Bavarian Alps.
[BK] _Prehistoric Europe_, p. 303.
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