the Bevolutions 'which have taken place on the Globe. 259 



tion of the principal chain of the Alps. This line, which may 

 be observed to run in a more or less marked manner from the 

 confines of Hungary to Auvergne, appears to be connected 

 with the principal anomalies unveiled in the interior structure 

 of our continent by geodesical measurements and observations 

 with the pendulum. We may even suppose that the forma- 

 tion of this line gave, as it were, the signal for the appearance 

 of the craters of elevation of the Cantal and Mont d'Or, round 

 which the volcanic cones of Auvergne have been subsequently 

 thrown up. 



The two opposite slopes, above mentioned, were not pro- 

 duced until after the existence of those lakes in which the 

 older transported substances were accumulated ; for it can be 

 ascertained that the bottom of the lake which covered La 

 Br esse and the N.W. portion of the department of the Isere 

 has suffered a considerable elevation from the north towards 

 the south, and that the bottom of the lake which extended 

 between Digne, Manosque, and Barjols, has been elevated to 

 a great degree from the south towards the north. 



The ancient deposits of transported substances, forming 

 horizontal beds at the bottom of the latter of these lakes, on 

 the edo-es of tertiary deposits, previously dislocated when the 

 Weste'i-n Alps were thrown up, are in their turn dislocated near 

 Mezel (Basses Alpes) in the direction of the small chains which 

 ridge Provence, such as the Ventoux and Lebaron, parallel 

 to the principal chain of the Alps. 



To determine the date of this last order of dislocations it 

 will be sufficient to remark, that the diluvian deposit is in no 

 part affected ; that it covers the edges of the dislocated beds 

 with no other slope than that which the current impressed on 

 them at their origin ; and that thus the elevation of the beds 

 in (juestion necessarily took place between the older deposit of 

 transported substances and the passage of the diluvian cur- 



rents. ■ 



If we attentively consider, on a terrestrial globe of suffi- 

 cient size and good execution, the most prominent and the 

 most recent systems of mountains which ridge Europe, we 

 may remark that each of them forms a part of a vast system 

 of parallel chains, which extends far beyond the countries 

 geologically known to us. But as in all the parts of each of 

 these systems situated in well examined portions ot Europe, 

 it has been more and more observed that parallel chains are 

 in general contemporaneous, there is no reason to suppose 

 that this law should suddenly ceabc, if its verification should 

 be pushed «,lili further. It is ihereforc natural lo consider, 

 initil direct observations may show the contrary, that each ot 

 2 L 2 "><^sc 



