as odvocaUd by M. Kite de Bcaumord. 133 



Dudley series of rocks. (See my Memoires Geologiques et Pal- 

 eontologiques, v. i. p. 18.) In that system, the strata have been 

 elevated in a line running a little to the E. of N. E., or a little to 

 the W. of S. W., or h. 3 to 4 of the miner's compass. It in- 

 cludes the older chains of the British isles ; those of the N. W. 

 of Germany; the Erzgebirge; the Sudetes ; a portion of the 

 Black Forest, of the Vosges, of Mount Pilas, and of Brit- 

 tany ; the Montagne Noire in Southern France ; the Mount Bi- 

 garre, and Mount Canigau in the Pyrenees ; also a part of the 

 centre of France, of the Maures, of Corsica, of Scandinavia 

 (Westmanland, Jemtland, Lappmark), and of Finland. Gneiss, 

 mica-slate, clay-slate, quartz-rock, and greywacke, constitute 

 these chains or first continents. 



The elevation of these mineral masses must certainly have 

 taken place before the formation of the old red sandstone, and I 

 believe with M. de Beaumont, that it was anterior even to the 

 formation of the newer transition rocks. The horizontal or 

 gently inclined position of the limestone containing orthoceratites 

 and trilobites in Sweden, in Baltic Russia, and Podolia, are 

 much in favour of that idea. The beds with trilobites at Dudley 

 and Tort work, would also have been horizontal had they not been 

 affected by more recent dislocations. The same might be said 

 of the arenaceous and calcareous slates containing anthracite of 

 Southern Iceland, I may add, that, in regard to Canada, ex- 

 cepting the information we have as to directions, the only data 

 we have to go upon in determining the age of the first elevations 

 of the older rocks of that country, are derived from some hori- 

 zontal or slightly inclined masses of shelly limestone. The ho- 

 rizontality of the system in Northern Europe and in America, 

 forms the type of a peculiar geological zone. Before going fur- 

 ther, it is as well to remark, that there are in Europe other ele- 

 vations which have taken place in lines parallel to those which 

 we have already mentioned, and which, as we shall see, are of a 

 different age. On the other hand, there are in Europe upheav- 

 ings in completely different directions from that of which I have 

 spoken, and which must nevertheless have been produced at the 

 same period as the system which we are now considering. As 

 an illustration of this remark, I may instance the primary schistose 

 rocks of the Riesengebirge and the Eulengebirge, where the di- 



