observable in the Secondary Stratified Rocks. 219 



In a note on the geological position of the fossil plants and 

 belemnites found at Petit Coeur near Moutiers on the Taren- 

 taise*, published in 1828, M. Elie de Beaumont observes, that 

 the system of beds described by M. Brochant in his memoir 

 on the Tarentaise, and which in many places contains consi- 

 derable masses of granular limestone and micaceous quartz 

 rock, as well as large masses of gypsum, belongs to the oolite 

 formation. He founds this opinion on the circumstance, that 

 the most ancient secondary rocks of that country, in which no 

 fossils have been found that have not been also discovered in 

 the lower part of the oolite system, can be traced to the en- 

 virons of Digne and Sisteron (department of the Basses Alpes), 

 where they afford a great abundance of those fossils supposed 

 to be characteristic of the lias. 



In a notice on the geological position of the fossil plants and 

 graphite found at the Col du Chardonet f (department of the 

 Hautes Alpes), published in 1828, the same gentleman re- 

 marks, that as the traveller quitting the Bourg d'Oisans (Pied- 

 mont) approaches the continuous range of primitive masses 

 that extend from Monte Rosa towards the mountains on the 

 west of Coni, he perceives that the secondary rocks gradually 

 lose their original character, though certain distinguishing 

 marks may still be traced, thus resembling a half-bui'nt piece 

 of wood in which the ligneous fibres may be traced far beyond 

 the part that remains wood, into that converted into charcoal. 



The quartz rocks of these countries appear to M. Elie de 

 Beaumont to be an alteration of the anthracite sandstones, the 

 variegated green and reddish schists that accompany them, a 

 change from the schistose clay, and the gypsum a substitution 

 for the limestone. 



He has also remarked the original difference that exists 

 between these secondary rocks of the interior of the Alps, and 

 the same formations of other countries ; and thence concludes 

 that very little importance should be attached to the difference 

 of mineralogical structure which exists between the beds above 

 noticed, and that of the lower ])ortions of the oolite formation, 

 occurring undisturbed in other parts of Europe, of which these 

 Al|)ine rocks appear to him the enlarged prolongation. 



Without entering into the subject of all the changes which 

 M. Elie de Beaumont considers he can trace even in the range 

 of the Alps itself, it is enough for my present purpose that 

 fossils cliuracteristic of the lias aie found in rocks which bear 

 no mineralogical resemblance to it, as seen in l^nglaiul. On the 

 contrary, we there find the mineralogical structure which was 



• Annftlim den Sciences NaltuxUcs, toai. xiv. p. 113. 

 t lljid. loin. XV. ]•• .'<•")•'. 



2 F 2 once 



