40 TRAVELS THROUGH' 



of their finer particles, colour, fiffnres, cracks, 

 and petrifa&ions , which are very different in dif- 

 ferent beds, and conftamly the fame in the fame 

 bed. To have a general idea of thefe beds, from 

 the lowefl parts up to the fummits of thefe calca- 

 reous Alps, I can tell you, that they are generally 

 as follows. 



i. The deepefc lime-ftratum, from the foot or 

 root to the middle of the Alps, is compofed of an 

 innumerable quantity of many fmaller beds, and 

 is at the exterior fides of the hills wafhed by the 

 defcending rain or fnow-waters into a great quan- 

 tity of perpendicular gutters, which form, as it 

 were, as many pyramidal bunches of a dark lead- 

 colour. This large ftratum contains but few pe- 

 trifadions , if any, they are hollow, or confift in 

 the inner ftony nucleus of the mells, or in the 

 petrified inhabitants * of the fhells, whereof no- 

 thing is left but the inner moulding. Thefe nu- 

 clei are likewife hollow, and filled with cryfta- 

 lized lirae fpar , but all thefe marine petrifactions 

 confift in fmaller bivalves and rifled tellines. 



* The Editor of Mr. Ferber's Letters ought to have blotted 

 this lapfus judidi, as certainly he could not be ferioufly of an 

 opinion, which is inconfiftent with the nature of thefe ani- 

 mals ; and even with his faying immediately after, that thefe 

 uclei are moft part hollow and filled only with cryflallifed 

 /par. 



*. The 



