246 Elie de Beaumont's Researches on soine of 



chains of Wales, and the Cornish chain, — they will be nearly 

 parallel to each other and to the line of bearing of the lake 

 mountains. The elevation of these chains, which produce 

 marked effects on the physical character of Great Britain, is 

 referred by Professor Sedgwick to the same period ; and the 

 parallelism is not considered accidental, but as offering a con- 

 firmation of the general principle, — that mountain-chains, all 

 elevated at the same period of time, present a genei-al paral- 

 lelism in the bearing of their component strata. 



The surface of continental Europe presents many moun- 

 tainous countries, in which the predominant direction of the 

 most ancient and disturbed beds is, as has been remarked for 

 more than thirty years by M. Humboldt, but slightly I'e- 

 moved from a N.E. and S.W. line. Such is, for example, the 

 direction of the grauwacke and slate beds in the mountains of 

 the Eiffel, the Hundsruck, and of Nassau, at the feet of which 

 were probably deposited the coal-measures of Belgium and 

 Saarbruck. Such is also the direction of the slate, grauwacke, 

 and transition limestone beds of the northern and central parts 

 of the Vosges, on the edges of which there are several small 

 coal basins. 



The parallelism of this direction to that observed by Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick in England, added to the fact, that in the Vosges 

 this direction of the slate and grauwacke strata is not carried 

 into the coal-measures, leads us naturally to suppose that the 

 inclined position of these parallel beds of England and the 

 Continent is due to the same catastrophe, the most ancient of 

 any of which traces can at present be clearly recognised. 



Further researches may perhaps show the relation that 

 may exist between the different parts of the Westmoreland 

 slate rocks, and more effaced and older elevations of strata 

 than this now under consideration. 



1 1. System of the Ballons ( Vosges) and of the Hills oftheBocage 

 [Calvados). — The observations noticed in the preceding article, 

 only prove that the system of Westmoreland and the Hunds- 

 ruck have been elevated before the deposition of the carboni- 

 ferous series; but it would appear that it had been elevated 

 even before the deposit of the more recent transition rocks. 

 In fact, among those beds which we are in the habit of com- 

 prising in the general denomination of transition rocks, there 

 is a widely extended class which has not been affected by the 

 N.E. aiid S.W. elevation of the ancient slates, and which 

 may have been deposited on these beds, previously upheaved. 

 Such are the marly and arenaceous limestones with Ortho- 

 ceratites, Trilobites, Hysterolites, &c. which occur in Podolia, 

 in the environs of St. Petersburg, in Sweden, and in Norway, 



where 



