240 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



able. If we suppose the elevation to be due to the 

 shrinking or subsidence of the land all round our 

 assumed circle, we arrive equally at the conclusion 

 that the area of the open fissures would be altogether 

 insignificant as compared with that of the unfissured 

 crust. 



To those who have seen them from a commanding 

 elevation, it is needless to say that the Alps themselves 

 bear no sort of resemblance to the picture which this 

 theory presents to us. Instead of deep cracks with 

 approximately vertical walls, we have ridges running 

 into peaks, and gradually sloping to form valleys. 

 Instead of a fissured crust, we have a state of things 

 closely resembling the surface of the ocean when agi- 

 tated by a storm. The valleys, instead of being much 

 narrower than the ridges, occupy the greater space. A 

 plaster cast of the Alps turned upside down, so as to 

 invert the elevations and depressions, would exhibit 

 blunter and broader mountains, with narrower valleys 

 between them, than the present ones. The valleys that 

 exist cannot, I think, with any correctness of language 

 be called fissures. It may be urged that they origi- 

 nated in fissures : but even this is unproved, and, were 

 it proved, the fissures would still play the subordinate 

 part of giving direction to the agents which are to be 

 regarded as the real sculptors of the Alps. 



The fracture theory, then, if it regards the elevation 

 of the Alps as due to the operation of a force acting 

 throughout the entire region, is, in my opinion, utterly 

 incompetent to account for the conformation of the 

 country. If, on the other hand, we are compelled to 

 resort to local disturbances, the manipulation of the 

 earth's crust necessary to obtain the valleys and the 

 mountains will, I imagine, bring the difficulties of the 

 theory into very strong relief. Indeed an examination 



