THEORY OF THE EARTH. 251 



which also shews itself at the surface in the east- 

 ern provinces of France, and in the whole south- 

 ern part of Germany. 



In this shell -limestone are deposited great 

 masses of gypsum and rich beds of salt ; and un- 

 der it are found the thin beds of copper- slates so 

 rich in fishes, among which there are also fresh- 

 water reptiles. The copper-slate rests upon a 

 red sandstone, to the epoch of which belong those 

 famous deposits of coal, which supply the present 

 inhabitants of the civilized countries of Europe 

 with fuel, and are the remains of the first vege- 

 table productions with which the face of the globe 

 was adorned. We learn from the trunks of 

 ferns, whose impressions they have preserved, 

 how different these ancient forests have been 

 from ours. 



We then quickly come to those transition for- 

 mations, in which primeval nature, nature dead 

 and purely mineral, seems to have disputed the 

 empire with organising nature. Black limestones, 

 and schists which present only Crustacea and shells 

 of kinds now extinct, alternate with remains of 

 primitive formations, and announce our having 

 arrived at those formations, the oldest with which 

 we are acquainted, those ancient foundations of 

 the present envelop of the globe, the marbles and 

 primitive slates, the gneisses, and, lastly, the gra- 

 nites. 



