294 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP, 
if our English mountains are less imposing 
so far as mere height is concerned, they are 
most venerable from their great antiquity. 
But though the existing Alps are in one 
sense, and speaking geologically, very recent, 
there is strong reason for believing that there 
was a chain of lofty mountains there long 
previously. “The first indication,” says Judd, 
“of the existence of a line of weakness in this 
portion of the earth’s crust is found towards 
the close of the Permian period, when a series 
of volcanic outbursts on the very grandest 
scale took place” along a line nearly follow- 
ing that of the present Alps, and led to the 
formation of a range of mountains, which, in 
his opinion, must have been at least 8000 to 
9000 feet high. Ramsay and Bonney have 
also given strong reasons for believing 
that the present line of the Alps was, at a 
still earlier period, occupied by a range 
of mountains no less lofty than those of 
to-day. Thus then, though the present Alps 
are comparatively speaking: so recent, there 
are good grounds for the belief that they were 
preceded by one or more earlier ranges, once 
