20 SECOND GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 



earliest period of geological history, constitute a great part of the 

 present surface of the globe, and ate often found at great depths, 

 beneath less ancient formations. They present evident traces of 

 great overthrows, and the beds or layers which they form no longer 

 occupy the horizontal position they must have had in the begin- 

 ning, but are more or less inclined, twisted and fractured, as if at 

 various times they had been broken and their immense fragments 

 irregularly raised up. Those countries in which the primitive 

 rocks constitute the surface are knotted and mountainous, and we 

 find these same rocks in the most elevated points of the globe, 

 where they form the mass of most great mountain chains. 



22. The central plane of France, comprising Auvergne, Limou- 

 sin, Vivarais, and Valais, is formed almost entirely of primitive 

 rocks, most of which are granitic. The same is true of a great 

 part of Brittany and Corsica, Scandinavia and Finknd, &c. ; these 

 ancient rocks also constitute a large part of the Great Alps, of 

 which Mont Blanc is the highest point, the Eastern Alps from 

 Saint Gothard to Hungary, the Pyrenees, the chain of Erzge- 

 berge, in Saxony, the Grampian Hills of Scotknd, the Oural 

 mountains, in Russia, the Alleghanies in the United States, and 

 the Andes in South America. 



23. As we have already stated, we find no fossils in the sedi- 

 mentary formations of this geological period, and it is therefore 

 inferred that in this epoch no living beings existed on the surface 

 of the globe ; but it may have been otherwise, and the absence of 

 fossils in these strata depends on some cause, such as their destruc- 

 tion by heat, resulting from their vicinity to enormous masses of 

 igneous rocks, effused near to, or even over and above these non- 

 fossiliferous strata. 



SECOND GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 

 Transition Formation. 



24. The stratified formations which rest on the primitive strata 

 iust mentioned, present us with the first traces of the existence cf 

 living beings on the surface of the globe, and constitute a particrJar 

 division, generally named the Transition Formation, but desig- 

 nated by Mr. Lyell as the Primary Fossiliferous Formation. The 

 most recent name given, however, to these formations, is poise' ozoic 

 (formed from the Greek palaios, ancient, and zoon, an animal), be- 

 cause they contain ancient animal remains. 



21 Are primitive rocks found only beneath the more recent formations ? 



22. In what countries do we find primitive rocks at the surface 7 



23. What fossils are found in the primitive sedimentary rocks? 



24. In what formations are fossils first met with ? What is meant by 

 palaeozoic formation ? 



