“Roches moutonnées”

Abstract

SOME ten years ago, I came across in an old memoir a rational explanation of the term roches moutonnées; but I made no note at the time, and have been unable to trace the reference. However, my scepticism was fortified, and I proceeded to search French dictionaries, which made it clear that moutonné meant “frizzled like sheep's wool,” and not “sheep-like.” Yet M de Lapparent tells us (“Traité de Géologie,” 3me ed., p. 281) that these glaciated rocks “produisent une impression analogue à celle d'un troupeau de moutons endormis, d'où le nom de roches moutonnées”; and who shall question this precise statement of a French author interpreting his own language? It is the explanation that has been taught to all of us, though I know of only one field-geologist who seriously maintains that roches moutonnées might be taken for a flock of sheep. Agassiz states that De Saussure is the author of the term; but I have long been foiled by its omission from the index of the famous “Voyages dans les Alpes.” In “Open-Air Studies,” however, I ventured to compare the mammillations of a glaciated surface to those upon an antique wig; but all the time, it seems, Mr. Whymper held the key of the matter for us, in a passage which has escaped the memory even of Prof. Bonney (see “Ice-Work,” 1896, p. 10). Mr. Whymper, in fact (“Scrambles amongst the Alps,” fourth edition, 1893, p. 133), supplies the reference to De Saussure; and in the “Voyages dans les Alpes,” 1804, tome ii. p. 435, par. 1061, we may read of what are styled in the margin “montagnes moutonnées.” De Saussure states that behind Envionne (the modern Envionnaz), in the upper valley of the Rhône, “ces rondeurs contiguës et répetées forment en grand l'effet d'une toison bien fournie, ou de ces perruques que l'on nomme aussi moutonnées” In face of this, there is no longer any need to tax the credulity of our pupils with a fanciful explanation, which we seem to have forced even upon French-speaking peoples.