June 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



137 



ha? been given by the great tunnelling operations of later 

 years, and by the observations of Sharpe, Favre, Stapff, 

 Heine, Bonney, and others ; and the geological age of the 

 newest of the rocks has only been satisfactorily established 

 in recent times. 



The granitic, gneissic, and schistose rocks forming the 

 axis of the high Alps were, in the old days of geological 

 science, considered to be purely Igneous, and what was 

 then called " Primitive " rock, the oldest and first con- 

 solidated rock, as was supposed, from which were derived 

 all the Sedimentary rocks ; and the upheaval of the range 



Eocene strata, while the well-known Righi and the 

 Rosberg expose beds of conglomerates of Oligocene age 

 of vast thickness. An upheaval of the Alps must con- 

 sequently have taken place long after the close of the 

 Eocene period. The previously upheaved land, the Eocene 

 Alps, had been slowly depressed for thousands of feet 

 during the slow accumulation of the vast beds of water- 

 rolled pebbles, forming the " Nagelfluh " of the " Molasse," 

 and then, subsequently, again upheaved, until the pebble- 

 beds were high above the waters from which they had 

 emerged and in which they had been accumulated. There 



Fis. 1. -SECTION' THROUGH MOUNT ST GOTHARD ALONG THE LINE OF THE TUNNEL. (After Stapff.' 



Kaslelthfriwrut 

 I0 04V feet 



-< A A A A/, A/, , 

 ^ < A A A A A ,^/' 



2 I 



1. Granites. 2. Gneiss. 3. Schists with Hornblende Eock. 4. Cipoline. 5. Serpentine. 6. Dolomite. 



was ascribed to sudden, violent, and paroxysmal efforts of 

 nature, which it was contended acted with much greater 

 intensity of force in the past than at the present time. 

 Our knowledge now, however, leads to a quite different 

 conclusion as to the age of the Alps, for upon the Crystal- 

 line rocks forming their core we find that Jurassic, Creta- 

 ceo\is, and Eocene strata repose at high levels, and into 

 each and all of these rocks the granitic and gneissic rocks 

 penetrate. Thus is clearly proved the post-Cretaceous 

 age of these once supposed fundamental and Primitive 

 rocks, since we see that they were in a fluid or plastic 

 state in the Eocene period, and under vast thickuesaea of 



is evidence, indeed, that the Alps of Dauphin^ are in 

 geological age post-Cretaceous, the Julian Alps later 

 than the Lower Eocene, the Western and Northern Alps 

 post-Miocene, and that the highest and principal chain 

 is the newest of all, or post-Pliocene. Thus it was this 

 final upheaval that gave to Europe the grand range of 

 the Penine Alps, with the giant peaks of Mont Blanc, 

 Monte Eosa, the Matterhorn, and the Great St. Bernard. 

 As has been pointedly said : " It may well appear a 

 startling proposition to learn that the clay of London 

 was in course of accumulation as marine mud at a time 

 when the ocean still rolled its waves over the space now 



Fio. 2.— SECTION THROUGH MONT BLANC FROM LES FIZ TO CRAMONT. (Afteb Fateb.) 



1. Granite (Protogene). 2. Crystalline Schists. 3. Schists with Conglomerate. 4. Dolomite. 5. Triassic or Jurassic. 6. Jurassic. 

 7. Neoeom'an. 8. Urgouiaii. 9. Chalk. 10. Nummulitic Limestone. 11. Grcs de Taviglianar. 



strata, into which the fused mass penetrated ; and it is 

 not improbable that Sedimentary rocks of the same age 

 as some of the fossiliferous and wellkaown deposits of 

 England furnished the material. At the commencement 

 of the Eocene period, therefore, the Alps were not in 

 existence, though elevated land may have occupied their 

 place in previous epochs, and what now forms lofty 

 summits was deeply buried beneath the floor of the sea. 



But the Alps as we know them, like other mountain 

 ranges, were not formed by one elevatory movement only, 

 for there is evidence of several, the final one being of very 

 late geological age. On the flanks of the Alps, and having 

 an elevation of no less than ten thousand feet, are found 



occupied by some of the loftiest Alpine summits"; yet there 

 is no room left for doubt that such was the case. And in 

 the same presidential address from which the foregoing is 

 taken, Lyell says that " not only the upheaval of the Alps, 

 but all the principal internal movements, dislocations, in- 

 versions, and contortions of the strata are subsequent 

 to the Nummulitic deposits, and liad not, therefore, even 

 commenced till great numbers of the Eocene vertebrate 

 and invertebrate animals had lived and died in succession." 

 To a post-Pliocene upheaval must also be assigned the 

 elevation of a portion of the Jura Mountains, the Secondary 

 rocks of which are so conspicuously folded ; but the more 

 southern Juras are probably of the preceding epoch, while 



