Whether this mysterious cataclysm occurred before or within the modern epoch is a question which, as yet, has not by any means been determined. The few organic remains detected in the deposit are of marine origin—one or two species of shells—but all identical with species now existing. The presumption is that the climate which prevailed over these northern regions during the period was extremely low. But how long it lasted, and why there are no types preserved, in all that congeries of materials of the _terrestrial_ fauna and flora of the period, are points both of them of a very perplexing kind. Whether just dawning upon the advent of man, or within the actual era of his history, certain it is that these are the results of a chaotic condition over a large portion of our planet, of which, if we except the deluge, we have no record nor memorials in any of the after changes and modifications of its surface. Shall we add, as indicative of a FINAL CAUSE appearing in and overruling the tumultuous agitation, that to this source is to be traced great part of the soil which covers the valleys and mountain sides of all the submerged districts? that hereby extensive lakes were silted up, the flinty rock concealed by fertile earth, and the steep acclivity made accessible to the husbandman? One thing is clear, that all the latest tertiary strata in this alpine region have, after their consolidation, been disturbed and broken up: it is upon their inverted edges that the superficial accumulations have been deposited and now rest: and whether the submergence of Europe, and other parts of the globe, was simultaneous or not with the cause of their movement and overthrow, a superintending wisdom and purpose are unquestionably discernible in those accessions of soil and other economic arrangements that resulted from the change. There is another theory, however, which has been applied to the explanation of these phenomena—namely, the THEORY OF GLACIERS, as illustrated in the works of Venetz, Charpentier, Agassiz, and Forbes.