Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
M. Guyot had endeavoured to show that the Alpine erratics, instead
of being scattered at random over the Jura and the great plain of
Switzerland, are arranged in a certain determinate order strictly
analogous to that which ought to prevail if they had once constituted
the lateral, medial, and terminal moraines of great glaciers. The rocks
chiefly relied on as evidence of this distribution consist of three
varieties of granite, besides gneiss, chlorite-slate, euphotide,
serpentine, and a peculiar kind of conglomerate, all of them foreign
alike to the great Strath between the Alps and Jura and to the structure
of the Jura itself. In these two regions limestones, sandstones, and
clays of the Secondary and Tertiary formations alone crop out at the
surface, so that the travelled fragments of Alpine origin can easily be
distinguished and in some cases the precise localities pointed out from
whence they must have come.
[Illustration: Figure 42. Map of Ancient Glacier]
(FIGURE 42. MAP SHOWING THE SUPPOSED COURSE OF THE ANCIENT AND NOW
EXTINCT GLACIER OF THE RHONE, AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ERRATIC
BLOCKS AND DRIFT CONVEYED BY IT TO THE GREAT VALLEY OF SWITZERLAND
AND THE JURA.)
The accompanying map or diagram (Figure 42) slightly altered from one
given by Mr. Maclaren will enable the reader more fully to appreciate
the line of argument relied on by M. Guyot. The dotted area is that over
which the Alpine fragments were spread by the supposed extinct glacier
of the Rhone. The site of the present reduced glacier of that name is
shown at A. From that point the boulders may first be traced to B, or
Martigny, where the valley takes an abrupt turn at right angles to its
former course. Here the blocks belonging to the right side of the river
or derived from c d e have not crossed over to the left side at B, as
they should have done had they been transported by floating ice, but
continue to keep to the side to which they belonged, assuming that they
once formed part of a right lateral moraine of a great extinct glacier.
That glacier, after arriving at the lower end of the long narrow valley
of the upper Rhone at F, filled the Lake of Geneva, F, I, with ice. From
F, as from a great vomitory, it then radiated in all directions bearing
along with it the moraines with which it was loaded and spreading them
out on all sides over the great plain. But the principal icy mass moved
straight onwards in a direct line towards the hill of Chasseron, G
(precisely opposite F), where the Alpine erratics attain their maximum
of height on the Jura, that is to say 2015 English feet above the level
of the Lake of Neufchatel or 3450 feet above the sea. The granite blocks
which have ascended to this eminence G came from the east shoulder of
Mont Blanc h, having travelled in the direction B, F, G.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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