qf Serpentim^ Sfc. in the Apennines. 203 



of which had perpetually occupied him, and to which he has 

 given the name of ophite. The ophite of M. Palassou is a 

 greenstone (diabase), but it is an ill characterized green- 

 stone^ on one side passing into hornblende rock (amphibo- 

 lite), in another into trappite (trappite), and in another into 

 serpentine, as he observes, and as I have mjself seen on the 

 spot, at Pouzac, near Bagneres ; this rock, which in every 

 respect resembles that of Pietramala, rests like it on lime- 

 stone, which M. Palassou refers to the secondary limestones. 

 Here then at the foot of the Pyrenees, as at the summit of 

 the Apennines, at a distance of more than two hundred 

 leagues, is the same rock formation by crystallization, afford- 

 ing nearly the same modifications, situated in both places on 

 a limestone of sediment. This fact surprizes us less now 

 that it begins to become common ; but it required, at the 

 time M. Palassou remarked it, a good method of observa- 

 tion to see it, and some courage to declare it. 



Geologists who have published general works have all 

 thrown out the same opinion : it is found in Reuss, and all 

 the English and German disciples of the Wernerian school. 

 We shall confine ourselves to citing the most modern, those 

 whose works have just appeared. 



M. Breislak * considers, as do all the geologists he men- 

 tions, Messrs Cordier, Brocchi, Faujus, Viviani, &c. the 

 rocks of serpentine as belonging to the last chains of primi- 

 tive rocks, and neither cites in Italy nor elsewhere any ex- 

 amples of serpentine rocks of more modern formation. 



M. Daubuisson, while admitting with geogolists of the 

 Wernerian school two formations of serpentine, and referring 

 the second to the transition epoch, does not find cl«ar and 

 authentic examples to give for establishing the epoch of for- 

 qiation of the last; he also regards dialiage rock as belong- 

 ing to the last term of the primitive series. + 



M. de Bonnard, in his article Terrain of the Dictionnaire 

 d'histoire uaturelJe, establishes, with all geologists, two for- 

 mations of serpentine rocks ; he refers the first, composed 

 of dialiage rock and serpentine often calcarifcrous, and ia 



* Institutions geologiques, 1818, t. 1. § 276. 

 + Elemtns de Geologie, 1820, t. ii. p. 160 & 170. 



