342 THE GEOLOGY OF THE ALPS. [XIV. 



near the Jungfrau, has afforded to Favre a pale green ophicalce 

 resembling that of the Laurentian, in which he has detected 

 Eozoon Canadense (697 a). Having thus declared his convic- 

 tion of the great antiquity of the crystalline schists, whose 

 ruins enter into the composition of the conglomerate of Valor- 

 sine, he proceeds to remark that " the part played by the Alps 

 of Savoy by that mysterious force called metamorphism, to 

 which the formation of the crystalline schists is often attributed, 

 has been greatly exaggerated." He adds, " I have always been 

 surprised to find in the Alps so few traces of this pretended 

 action," and suggests that the question has been complicated by 

 the resemblances already noted between the crystalline schists 

 and the recomposed rocks of the coal measures ( 697 c). In 

 the same spirit he declared in 1859 that there are "scarcely 

 any evidences of alteration after the Valorsine conglomerate " ; 

 in the paste of which he admits a crystalline rearrangement, by 

 no means improbable.* It appears inconsistent with these 

 expressions of opinion to find our author admitting with Lory 

 the triassic and Jurassic age of the great mass of lustrous schists 

 and micaceous limestones which are overlaid by the carbonifer- 

 ous at Modane, and at various localities, as we have seen, in- 

 clude serpentines, steatites, etc. Our author feels this to be a 

 difficulty, and speaks of these serpentines, unlike those of the 

 Montanvert, the Aiguilles Rouges, etc., as belonging to non- 

 crystalline formations, a character which can hardly be ascribed 

 to them. If, however, Sismonda be correct in placing them 

 below rocks which are, according to Favre, true coal measures, 

 these serpentines and steatites, with their accompanying schists 

 and limestones, are, as we have already shown, in the same 

 horizon with the crystalline schists to the north of Mont Blanc. 

 The origin of the fan-like structure attributed to the Alps 

 by nearly all observers since the time of De Saussure, and cor- 

 rectly represented in the sections published by Studer in 1851, 

 and by Favre in 1859, is explained by the latter in accordance 

 with the view put forward by Lory in 1860.t He supposes 



* Terrains liasaique et keuperien, page 77. 



t Lory, Description geologique du Dauphine, p. 180. 



