THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. 



the borders of the Mediterranean to Saint- Yallier, and on the 

 other side the inclination is in the opposite direction. From the 

 borders of the Loire the surface rises gently on the one side in 

 the direction N.N.W., and on the other in the direction S.S.E., as 

 far as the valleys of Auvergne. At the foot of the Pyrenees, the 

 ophites, as well as the gypsums and the saliferous masses con- 

 nected with them, form a tract whose direction is parallel to the 

 chain of the principal Alps, and resemble the arrangement of the 

 serpentines of the valley of Aosta. 



221. XVII. SYSTEM OF TJENARTJS. This is the last and most 

 recent great catastrophe of which Europe has been the theatre. 

 It took place at an epoch when our seas were peopled by the 

 tribes which now inhabit them, and when possibly the human 

 race had already appeared, so that the result might not inaptly be 

 called the post- Adamite system. 



After the diluvial deposits which surrounded the principal 

 Alps in horizontal strata had been made, the surface of Tuscany 

 underwent a dislocation parallel to a great circle, directed nearly 

 N.W. and S.E. The deposits raised at this epoch include nothing 

 but shells, similar to those of the existing seas, as may be 

 shown by an examination of the tufa of the Phlegra)an fields, a 

 district on the shore of the Bay of Baise, near Naples, and of the 

 Somma of the island of Ischia. The sedimentary deposits of 

 Sardinia, where M. de la Marmora discovered the remains of 

 infant arts, appear also to have shared in this movement, which 

 must therefore have been one of extremely modern date com- 

 pared with all those already described. 



222. It is to this catastrophe that must be ascribed the ele- 

 vation of the Somma, of Stromboli, and of Etna, all of which 

 would have been totally deranged if they had existed before 

 the catastrophe of the principal Alps, by which so many 

 ravages have been produced in all directions. To the same 

 movement are probably also due the volcanic formation of 

 Auvergne and the Vivarais, the ejections from which have issued 

 from fractures and fissures produced by some of the antecedent 

 catastrophes. 



The system of elevation, the traces of which are seen in 

 Provence, near Nice, in Sardinia, in Sicily, and in the Phlegrtean 

 fields, is parallel to the modern system, which Messrs. Boblaye 

 and Virlet have indicated at the southern part of the Morea, and 

 which they have called Tcenarus, from the adjacent cape of that 

 name. 



223. Such then, according to the remarkably able and per- 

 spicuous analysis of M. Elie de Beaumont, is the history of the 

 principal changes which the surface of the globe has undergone 



22 



