Abstract
CAPTAIN VIDAL DE LA BLACHE publishes in this book a memoir on the development of the valley of the Meuse, a subject that has engaged the attention of several previous authors, including M. Cornet and Prof. W. M. Davis. He points out the striking character of this long valley, without any important tributaries, yet carved out in past times by a river more powerful than that which now occupies its bed. He explains its independence as regards the Paris basin by the fact that its waters were led northward into an old sea covering the Ardennes before the westward slope of the Seine system had been determined. The Meuse was originally joined by the Moselle at Pagny-sur-Meuse, through the now deserted gap between that town and Toul, and thus had its primary sources in the Vosges. The author relics much on the distribution of pebbles from the Vosges in the older alluvium of the valley. He denies that the river is decadent, though since the capture of the Moselle it has lost much of its erosive force; it has still an important flow, owing to the supplies gathered from the rains and stored in the deep and saturated gravels of its bed.
Etude sur la Vallée Lorraine de la Meuse.
By J. Vidal de la Blache. Pp. 190; with figures and folding maps. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1908.) Price 4 francs.
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C., G. Etude sur la Vallée Lorraine de la Meuse . Nature 78, 661 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/078661a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/078661a0