UNDERGROUND WATERS. 511 



quently, the moUuscan fossils called belemnites have been broken 

 up and bad tbeir segments more or less scattered. 



Since the schistose structure has been found to be independent 

 of the stratification, the cause of a geometrical disposition so re- 

 markable and so general has become the subject of various hy- 

 potheses. It has been successively attributed to electric effects, 

 to terrestrial magnetism, to the heat of the globe, and to a begin- 

 ning of crystallization. Exact observations, however, teach us 

 that the cleavage of stratified beds is related on the one hand to 

 the actions which have deformed the fossils in the same strata, 

 and on the other hand to the axes of the warping and the great 

 lines of dislocation. The i3henomenon should most probably be 

 attributed to mechanical action. 



The demonstration has been confirmed by some very simple 

 experiments. Clay under compression assumes a leafy texture ; 

 but, for this, it must have a certain degree of plasticity. If too 

 dry, it crumbles ; if too wet, the laminse, while they are formed, 

 are not separable. I have got more decisive results from forcing 

 clay to flow, in a jet, under hydraulic pressure. In this case, very 

 well defined leaflets are produced, and that upon bands of several 

 metres, in the direction of the pressure and the movement. All 

 of these artificially laminated pastes resemble natural schistose 

 rocks in their fracture. In these various flows of the plastic mass, 

 the neighboring particles do not advance uniformly. The differ- 

 ences in the velocities which they acquire cause them to slide 

 upon one another ; and the schistose texture, the direct conse- 

 quence of this sliding, is, we may readily conceive, necessarily de- 

 termined in reference to the direction of the flow. The deforma- 

 tions of fossils and the drawing out of belemnites have been 

 reproduced in this way, and thus experimentally explained. 



We shall now consider how the fundamental facts of metamor- 

 phism imply the necessary action of subterranean waters. The 

 mineralogical modifications peculiar to the phenomena have in- 

 contestably taken place at a higher temperature than now pre- 

 vails on the surface of the globe. We base this conclusion upon 

 the analogies of these beds with the eruptive rocks, and especially 

 upon the presence of numerous anhydrous silicates, which form 

 one of their most remarkable features. The proper heat of the 

 globe decreasing from the deeper parts toward the surface, the 

 sediments deposited in the ocean, at the relatively low tempera- 

 ture that reigns there, should, when they have been covered by 

 other strata, acquire a higher temperature by reason of their 

 greater distance from the radiating surface. The superposition 

 of masses as heavy as are those of some of the stratified beds has 

 often been enough to determine, after their deposition, a consid- 

 erable heating up of the lower masses, especially at periods when 



