1 46 Dr Boue on tfie Elevation of Mountain Chaim^ 



The molasses of the Entlibuch are upheaved and inclined, 

 but I do not know that they include the upper part of this de- 

 posit, where shells are so abundant, and in which the strata are 

 ordinarily horizontal, or very little inclined, as near Zurich, be- 

 tween Thun and Berne, in Argovia, and elsewhere. 



M. de Beaumont still considers the nagelfluh of the Rigi as 

 part of the molasse; but the very height of the mountain (1875 

 metres), an elevation which the molasse nowhere else attains, 

 shews that the rock belongs to the inferior cretaceous series. M. 

 Bertrand Geslin has for a long time been of my opinion, and 

 found in it even the fucoidal sandstones of the greensand (see 

 J. de Geologie, vol. i.) : and the section given of the Rigi by 

 De la Beche confirms my suspicion (p. 268.) 



M. de Beaumont repeats the error of Messrs Murchison and 

 Sedgwick, who maintain that tertiary rocks occur in the valleys 

 at the northern foot of the Eastern Alps (p. 650.). The Lig- 

 nite of Hering, in the Tyrol, would be the only case of the 

 kind, but I have already explained why that fluviatile or delta 

 formation is found at the outlet of the valley. (See my Me- 

 moires, p. 7.) On the other hand, the observations made on the 

 base of the Southern Alps near Coma and Vicenza, in the Ne- 

 therlands, and in the Pyrenees, go to confirm the objections I 

 made to the opinion that the Gosau deposit belongs to the ter- 

 tiary series. (See my Memoires, p. 185.) 



If direction alone were to be attended to, we should include 

 in this eleventh system a part of Scandinavia (Upland, Smoland), 

 Northern Russia, a portion of the Riesenbirge, &c. Now, in 

 Scandinavia there are no rocks newer than the older transition 

 formation ; and Mr Ermann believes that the elevation in Rus- 

 sia took place after the formation of the first floetz deposits, an 

 opinion which does not correspond with Beaumonfs views. 



The twelfth system is that of the great chain of the Alps from 

 the Valais to Lower Austria ; it has the direction E. I N.E. to 

 W. i S.W. ; and was formed between the period of the tertiary 

 deposits, or the terrain de transport ancien^ the old alluvium of 

 M. de Beaumont, and the older true alluvium. This elevation 

 caused the dispersion of the rolled alpine blocks, by the sudden 

 melting of snow on the Western Alps ; but the bodies of water 

 thus formed, and which transported these blocks, were " des 



