THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. 



of the Limousin, where traces of it appear between Tulle and 

 Nontron. It is found also in the north-eastern part of Brittany 

 and in the Bocage of Normandy. Traces of it are found in the 

 mica-schists and gneiss of Messina, in the Erzgebirge, in Boehmer- 

 waldgebirge, in the granitic steppes which extend from Volhynia 

 towards the Don, in Labrador and in Canada. 



209. V. SYSTEM or JIUNDSEUCK. The catastrophe which pro- 

 duced this system coincided with the commencement of animal 

 and vegetable life upon the earth. The strata deposited by the 

 waters of the Silurian sea which preceded it, were uplifted from 

 their horizontal position so as to form the mountain ranges to 

 which M. Elie de Beaumont h-as given the name of Hundsruck, 

 from a mountainous region of Germany extending over the southern 

 part of Rhenish Prussia and Rhenish Bavaria, where it is con- 

 nected with the chain of the 

 Vosges. Its geological date 

 is fixed by the fact that the 



Sea Devonian strata are found in 

 a horizontal position upon its 

 flank, as shown in fig. 122. 

 The catastrophe must, there- 

 9 f d c b a f ore> have followed the Silu- 



rian, and preceded the Devonian period. 



This system is traced through France, in Brittany, in the de- 

 partment of thellle-et-Vilain, in the strata which cover Cape Finis- 

 tore, in Mayenne, and in the department of the Orne and the 

 Manche. It appears also in the slate formation of the Ardennes, 

 of the Eiffel, in the mountains of Hundsruck and the Taurus. 

 It is also found in the Hartz mountains, in the Erzgebirge, 

 in Bohemia, in the island of Gothland, in Finland and Lapland. 

 In England it is traced in Cornwall, Westmoreland, and the 

 Grampians. 



210. VI. SYSTEM OF THE BALLOTS. This system originated in a 

 convulsion by which the Devonian strata, /, were uplifted and 



thrown into an inclined 

 Fig 123 II position, as shown in fig. 



Carboniferous seas and lakes. 123. The waters of the 



globe, when tranquillity 

 ensued, deposited the car- 

 boniferous beds in hori- 

 h g f d c b a zontal strata, h, in the 



bottom of seas, oceans, and lakes, the latter being at more elevated 

 levels than the former, as shown in the figure. 



The date of the catastrophe is, therefore, antecedent to the car- 

 boniferous, and posterior to the Devonian period. This system is 

 14 



