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mmerous ; but as foi myself, who am neither a Neptunian nor a volcanist, and have no
view of establishing an absolute system, yet. from having attentively considered the different
effects arising ffom the great changes and revolutions which have taken place
In the natural world, I am of opinion that the operations of fire, as well as water, as
mentioned in my Maritime Alps, have in .11 probability acted at times together, and at
others separately, in giving those mountains their present degree of elevation, the confusion
and disorder so visible in their strata, that irregularity in their form, and abrupt,
ness and heterogeneity in their mass ; but, as to what relates to their origin, I am still
led ,0 suppose them to be the mere effect of a true crystallisation, effected at different
times, and with different modifications.
These conjectures, into which 1 have been led by my own repeated, and, I may add,
assiduous obsen-ations, while exploring the various chains in Europe, have been sanctioned
by other naturalists, who appear, from their survey of the same phenomena, to
have adopted similar ideas i and they have induced me to attribute the origin of .11
rocks of the compound cl.ss, which have distinct or regular strata, as also those of the
relhrctory, and the major part of the vitrifiable, such as schisti, horn-stone, lock-stone,
kneis or feldspath, some kinds of sand-stone, marbles, and even the calcareous stones,
which are of close testuie and . greyish hue, but which do not contdn any impressions of
fossils, to a second cry stalfisation, effected at an epoch posterior to the one in which
the granites and porphyries were formed : I conceive them likewise to have been
formed in a less agitated fluid, which circumstance has doubtless decided the parallelepiped
figure of the secondary rocks in general i for those molecules, then held by the
sea partly in a dissolvent state, and partly in suspension, having full liberty to move
inter iurd consequently power to obey the laws of affinity, the result has in the end
formed that kind of regular crystallisation.
It may not be, at the same time, improper to observe, that the irregular directions,
which in general affect a great part of the secondary mountains, as well as the different
thicknesses exhibited in their strata, ought to be attributed to accidental obstacles only,
which have, for the moment, prevented their crystallisation. But as for the tertiary
mountains, or the species of calcareous, which contain fossils, various kinds of marbles
of similar species, aluminous schisti, gypsum, fiuor, phosphate of lime or assatite, borax
felspar, indinated ditto, vitriohcs, and even different sorts of pit-coal, it is easy to conceive
their crystallisation, those bodies being composed of a mixture of earths modified
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with acids and mineral alkali, and an oleaginous, or rather bituminous, matter. Hence
it also seems probable that the mountains of this class owe their origin to an epoch
vastly posterior to the one in which the two former were formed, as appears to be
clearly demonstrated by the number of animal and vegetable fossils found imbedded in
them,—whereas the others do not contain any,—as likewise by their resting, in several
parts of the Alps, on primitive and secondary mountains, as mentioned in both my
Rhietian and Maritime Alps.
Besides these three great lithological divisions, which only differ by some modifications
in the manner of their crystallisation, as also in the period in which their operation
was performed, and which naturahsts have since sub-divided into a variety of classes,
orders, genera, species, 8ic. a fourth class may be considered, including every kind of
sand-stone, even with calcareous cement, pudding-stone with similar cement, some
species of tuffa, caspes, tourbes, or peats in general, &c.—attributing the origin of those
bodies to the succcssive deposits, sediments, or accumulations of the sea, and their density
and hardness to the more or less saline or bituminous particles, still kept by the sea
in a state of dissolution at the time of their formation.
Stones, nearly similar to the above, the sea, in like manner, continues to form along
its sliores, as I have frequently observed 5 though no-where, that I know of. so conspicuously
as in the Island of Portland. A circumstance, however, whicii accompanies
this species of sand-stones, is, that they have not the same consistency as those of the
secondary order: but this may be easily accounted for, from the sea no longer keeping
in a state of dissolution the same portion of saline, calcareous, and vitrifiable parts,
as it originally did.
Having now suggested my ideas on the formation of mountains in general, including
their division or classification, I shall subjoin some remarks on the origin of the major
part of the valleys belonging to the Alps, which will of course, in this place, lead me to
speak of that of Geneva.
As it may be recollected by the readers of my Rhstian Alps, published in 1792,
that I there stated, that al! my investigations induced me to believe that the sea had,
at different periods of time, carried itself alternately from the poles to the equator, and
from the equator to the poles, and that this kind of vibration, or flux and refiux of the
fluid, might be attributed to an imperceptible, but successive, approach and retreat of the
poles of the ecliptic to and front those of the equator,-! shall here venture to add, tliat this