M. n. Studer on the Origin of Granite. 301 



limestone forms immense exposed masses of dolomite. In the 

 Grisons and Glarus, the common Fucoid slates prevail as tlie 

 principal underlying rocks, crystalline strata of hornblende, 

 syenite, und gabbro overlying it. In the Bernese Oberland^ 

 the uppermost portions of the older Jura limestone have been 

 converted into marble, cipolin, and talc-slate; and, at a greater 

 distance from the gneiss of the Alps, and separated from it by 

 the system of the nummulite limestone, which is 10,000 feet 

 thick, and by the Niesen chain, we find likewise the upper 

 masses of the newer Jura limestone, in the Simmcn Thai and 

 the Saane Thai, converted, sometimes into a calcareous cipo- 

 lin, sometimes into red or green iron-shot slate ; among these 

 slates there occurs a light-coloured limestone, which is several 

 hundred feet in thickness, unstratified, fissured in all direc- 

 tions, and of a scaly granular structure ; and it is only deeper 

 still that we find the common black limestone, compact, dis- 

 tinctly stratified, and destitute of any organic remains. We 

 should hence be led almost to suppose that electro-polar pro- 

 cesses had been exerting their agency in the upper and exter- 

 nal parts of the mountain, whilst, contemporaneously, the deep- 

 est foundations had been subjected to the influence of agents 

 acting from beneath ; and we can see no reason why such op- 

 posing agencies should be confined solely to the Alps. 



In connection with the puzzling appearances of the meta- 

 morphosis of whole mountains, the facts which have hitherto 

 been regarded as principally supporting the upraising theory 

 can take only a subordinate place. The formative act of the 

 Alpine system is also a phenomenon which originally differs 

 essentially from all the volcanic processes with which we are 

 acquainted, and with which the foregoing facts are allied, but 

 is probably calculated to diffuse light upon these processes 

 themselves. When we see sedimentary deposits in the inte- 

 rior of the Alps passing into serpentine, which, farther on, 

 forms dykes, and thus overflows, lava-like, and produces con- 

 tiict phenomena, why are we not entitled to assume that, in 

 other regions where we can follow the dyke masses into a com- 

 mon rocky trunk, the connection of tliis trunk with tlie origi- 

 nal sedimentary deposit remains hid from us, because it is only 



VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII. — OCTOBEa 1840, X 



