INTRODUCTION; 16j 



granite as had been supposed, but of " Secondary " limestone 

 containing numerous marine fossils. Ramond also drew atten- 

 tion to the presence of horizontal and inclined strata, and to 

 the fan-shaped form in which the inclined strata were often 

 arranged. 



Johann von Charpentier (1786-1855), the son of Wilhelm 

 von Charpentier (p. 38), travelled as a young man for 

 four seasons in the Pyrenees (1808-12). The geological 

 work which he published in 1823 was for a long time the 

 standard work upon these mountains. The younger Charpen- 

 tier agreed with Palassou and Ramond regarding the parallel 

 trend of the strata along a definite strike, and demonstrated 

 that the sedimentary strata slope away from the granite core of 

 the chain. He established for the first time that there was 

 a transverse fault through the whole breadth of the chain 

 between Montrejeau and Perpignan, the eastern part of the 

 chain having been displaced to the north relatively to the 

 western portion. 



As a student and follower of Werner, Charpentier, like 

 Palassou, supposed that the aqueous deposits had consoli- 

 dated in their inclined position, and. gave no credence to ideas 

 of subsequent uplift and disturbance. He distinguished eight 

 formations, in ascending order granite, mica schist, primitive 

 limestone, transitional limestone, red sandstone, Alpine lime- 

 stone, and Jura limestone, ophite and terrigenous deposits 

 (Tertiary and Diluvium). Charpentier gave little attention to 

 the fossils, therefore not infrequently made blunders with 

 respect to the age of the stratigraphical deposits. For ex- 

 ample, Charpentier's "primitive" limestone corresponds to 

 Silurian and Devonian formations; his "transitional" lime- 

 stone, containing belemnites and ammonites, corresponds to 

 the Jurassic formation; his "Alpine" limestone to Cretaceous 

 and Lower Tertiary rocks. In spite of these shortcomings, 

 Charpentier's work was one of the most important of his time. 



Occasional observations had been made on the "Paris 

 Basin of Deposits" by Guettard, Desmarest, and others; 

 Lamanon gave special attention to the beds of gypsum near 

 Paris, and rightly regarded them as the deposits of a fresh- 

 water lake. De la Metherie had attributed them to volcanic 

 origin. Lamanon, however, found fossil specimens of a fresh- 

 water mollusc in the interstratified marls, and in the gypsum 

 bones of terrestrial mammals different from those of living 



