Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
A. Crest or watershed of the Alps.
B. Snow-covered Alpine summits which fed the ancient glaciers.
C. Moraines of ancient or extinct glaciers.)
To select another example from the opposite or southern side of the
Alps. It will be seen in the elaborate map recently executed by Signor
Gabriel de Mortillet of the ancient glaciers of the Italian flank of
the Alps that the old moraines descend in narrow strips from the
snow-covered ridges through the principal valleys to the great basin of
the Po, on reaching which they expand and cover large circular or oval
areas. Each of these groups of detritus is observed (see map, Figure 43)
to contain exclusively the wreck of such rocks as occur in situ on
the Alpine heights of the hydrographical basins to which the moraines
respectively belong.
I had an opportunity of verifying this fact, in company with Signor
Gastaldi as my guide, by examining the erratics and boulder formation
between Susa and Turin, on the banks of the Dora Riparia, which brings
down the waters from Mont Cenis and from the Alps south-west of it. I
there observed striated fragments of dolomite and gypsum, which had come
down from Mont Cenis and had travelled as far as Avigliana; also masses
of serpentine brought from less remote points, some of them apparently
exceeding in dimensions the largest erratics of Switzerland. I
afterwards visited, in company with Signori Gastaldi and Michelotti,
a still grander display of the work of a colossal glacier of the olden
time, 20 miles north-east of Turin, the moraine of which descended
from the two highest of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and after
passing through the valley of Aosta, issued from a narrow defile above
Ivrea (see map, Figure 43). From this vomitory the old glacier poured
into the plains of the Po that wonderful accumulation of mud, gravel,
boulders, and large erratics, which extend for 15 miles from above
Ivrea to below Caluso and which when seen in profile from Turin have the
aspect of a chain of hills. In many countries, indeed, they might rank
as an important range of hills, for where they join the mountains they
are more than 1500 feet high, and retain more than half that height for
a great part of their course, rising very abruptly from the plain, often
with a slope of from 20 to 30 degrees. This glacial drift reposes near
the mountains on ancient metamorphic rocks and farther from them on
marine Pliocene strata. Portions of the ridges of till and stratified
matter have been cut up into mounds and hillocks by the action of the
river, the Dora Baltea, and there are numerous lakes, so that the entire
moraine much resembles, except in its greater height and width, the line
of glacial drift of Perthshire and Forfarshire before described. Its
complicated structure can only be explained by supposing that the
ancient glacier advanced and retreated several times and left large
lateral moraines, the more modern mounds within the limits of the older
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