Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/385

 are competent to "root masses (of rock) bodily away." He seems to feel that mere grinding, rasping, and polishing would not be equal to the production of valleys, thousands of feet in depth, in any reasonable length of time, and so invokes this quicker process to get himself out of the difficulty. When and how Dr. Tyndall became possessed of this extraordinary idea I have no means of telling. Comparison of the following passages would lead one to suppose that it was acquired posterior to the publication of his Glaciers of the Alps:—

It has been already shown that the notion that the mountains were completely covered by glaciers (or anything like completely covered) is erroneous, and the evidence which leads to that conclusion is clearly supported by the fact that a great proportion (I think it may be said the great proportion) of the materials are angular which compose the moraines of the past, as well as of