250 Capt. Marshall Hall—Swiss Geological Excursion. 
IIJ.—A Weex’s Grotocicatn Excurston to tHe Swiss ALPS. 
By Capt. Marsnart Hatt, F.G.S8., F.C.S., ete. 
Wee following notes were drawn up by the writer some years 
since as a sketch for an excursion by members of the Geologists’ 
Association to the Alps, and it may perhaps still prove acceptable to 
geologists who this year intend to visit Switzerland for the first time. 
Leaving London any morning and proceeding onwards by the 
night-train from Paris, we may breakfast at Lausanne railway- 
station on the following morning. 
Take steamer from Lausanne (Ouchy) for Villeneuve, where we 
have a good example of an anticlinal valley—that of la Tiniére. 
Thence by rail to Vernayaz, where sleep. I need hardly summarize 
the geology round Lake Leman; in the train from Villeneuve 
remark the wave-crest form characteristic of the Jura seen from 
north, and the rock-fall at Roche ; on the right the great one near 
Vouvry. The Triassic rocks are all interesting ; and on the left 
after leaving Aigle are the fine marble quarries of St. Triphon. As 
you approach Bex you will observe the monticule called le Montet, 
which is principally a mass of gypsum. Bex with its salt mines 
would be well worth half a day’s exploration. 
Between that and St. Maurice we are in the Cretaceous formation. 
At the Baths of Lavey (left hand) we enter the Carboniferous region, 
consisting here of metamorphic schists. Remark any number of 
“roches moutonnées” and glacier-worn rocks. Of the picturesque 
nature of our route I say nothing—is it not recorded in many 
excellent guide-books ? 
Next morning visit the Gorges du Trient, and thence the Pissevache, 
whence a rough zigzag leads over schists and by slate quarries to a 
point half-way up the carriage road to Salvan. This road winds 
up an interesting gorge, with a repetition on each side of slates at 
the bottom, Carboniferous grits, anthracitic and mica-schists and 
metamorphic schists, and grits. The heights above are gneiss. 
Salvan is an hour and a quarter’s fair walk from Vernayaz, up a 
good char road, but with a pitiless series of, I think, fifty-two 
zigzags, and, once fairly out of them, a gentle hill. Some ten 
minutes before reaching Salvan and five minutes off the road to the 
south-east are some very remarkable “ marmites des Géants,” 
i.e. the ancient pot-holes of glacial times, worn by water falling 
through “moulins.” 'They show the pestle and mortar action, their 
centres rising in the form of cones. 
On the opposite side of the valley of the Rhone the Dents de 
Morcles rising more than 10,000 feet have been growing more and 
more grand, and the replications of the strata, of which a sketch 
after that by Professor E. Renevier is given (see Pl. VIII. p. 251, 
opposite), are very specially remarkable, and, even at that distance, 
quite evident. 
The geological map of the “Alpes Vaudoises,” by the same 
geologist, marks “ Poudingues de Valorsine” at Salvan. 
One charming walk, scarcely known to the Cockney tourist, is a 
