The women are in general tall, well-made, lively, and well informed, great care
and attention being paid to their education ; which circumstance has induced many of
them to quit their country, in order to fix either in England or Holland, as governesses,
&c.
From Versoix I proceeded to Copet, seven miles from Geneva, which, although
the capital of a barony, has nothing worth attending to, except its château, belonging
to M. Necker, formerly minister and general director of the French finances under
Lewis the Sixteenth. This charming mansion, which served as the residence of his
royal highness the duke of Gloucester, during the summer of 1787, is indeed fit for
a prince, from the extensiveness of its apartments, and from the noble and magnificent
appearance of it altogether. The road next leads to Nyon, distant about six miles,
supposed to have been the Colonia Equestris Noviodunum of the Romans, mentioned by
Pliny, but at present the residence of a bailiff. In this town and its environs have been
found many remnants of antiquity, such as medals, sepulchral urns, fragments of basreliefs.
See. From its convenient situation, on the banks of the lake, and at the point of
junction of the high roads to Burgundy, Geneva, and Lausanne, it is enriched by commerce,
which shows itself in its buildings. The streets are of tolerable width; and its
walks, which are particularly rural and picturesque, extremely well kept.
On the side of the town towards Rolle is a manufacture of porcelain, which has,
within a few years, acquired much reputation, from the whiteness, clearness, and transparency
of the ware itself, as well as the beauty of the colouring or painting.
Strangers, who may have left Geneva without previously visiting the Jur a and the
Dole, may still, from Nyon, be able to satisfy their curiosity,—those mountains being
only six or seven miles distant j and, though one continued ascent, there is an excellent
road the whole way.
This excursion ought to be strongly recommended to strangers in general, and to
naturalists in particular ; for the delay occasioned by so trifling a deviation from the usual
track will be amply repaid by the variety of interesting objects which present tliemselves
on all sides, the inspection of which will prepare the mind for a series of information
that would otherwise be lost. It is from the summit of the Dole only that a
proper idea can be formed of the height and direction of the secondary and tertiary
mountains which screen the lake, including those which constitute the extensive chain
of the Jura, whose roots stretch as far as mount Boetz-berg, called by Tacitus Vocelius,
a mountain contiguous to Basle, but which, from the Dole, gradually diverges towards
the north, leaving the lake in an eastern direction.
The figure of the Dole may be deemed extremely singular, having the appearance
of an immense rock, or, if I may be allowed the expression, that of a double mountain,
it being precisely placed on the summit of the Jura, from whence, according to my
measurement, it is elevated seven hundred feet, and is five thousand seven hundred and
seventy-four above the level of the sea. But a circumstance which is still more extraordinary
is, that its strata totally differ from those of the Jura, on which it stands, having
no apparent analogy in either direction, thickness, or structure. The side of the Dole next
the lake is very abrupt, resembling the great Saleve, having likewise a similarity in its
strata, which are perfectly parallel to each other, inclining towards the horizon at its two
extremities, and lowering considerably on the north-west side. These strata are of a
greyish colour, much harder than those of the Jura, containing few fossils, although
calcareous, and in many parts covered by another species of calcareous stone of a yellowish
hue, similar to what I had before seen in the neighbourhood of Cluse, and on
the sides of the Jura, containing, like those, a quantity of exuvi® of petrified marine
bodies, such as cchinitx, anomia, coralUtes, tubularia:, versiaditi, 8ic. This observation,
joined to those I had previously had an opportunity of making near the town of Gex,
at the basis of the Jura, on the Vouaches conriguous to Chaumont in Savoy, as also on
the Saleve, has so far strengthened my former opinion respecting their formation, as
in a manner to convince me that the mass of these chains have doubtless been formed
at two different periods of time; as also, that the hard parallel calcareous strata, visible
in so many places on the same mountains, may be reasonably presumed to be no other
than the salient or projecting parts of their nucleus, the date of which appears to be
much anterior to the calcareous strata which cover them to their summit. The latter
have less density than the former, are coarser-grained, thinner, of a different colour, and
have a greater number of fossils, and bear evident marks of having been the effects of
the works of the sea, when it yet submerged that part of the Alps, previous to its last
transmutation.
Another remark, no less curious, and which seems to corroborate the preceding
ideas, is, that the calcareous strata before noticed, which cover the mountains, have a
direction quite different from those which form their nucleus, or interior, and which, in
IS parts, serve them even as supports or props,—being, in general, so inclined, as to
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