340 RELATIVE ANTIQUITY [Ch.XXlV. 



The notion of deluges accompanying the protrusion of 

 mountain-chains is founded on a belief of the instantaneousness 

 of the movement which we are prepared to controvert, and on 

 other assumptions which we have discussed in a former part of 

 this volume *. On these topics, therefore, it will be unneces- 

 sary for us to dilate at present, and we shall merely address 

 ourselves to the analysis of that evidence whereby M. de Beau- 

 mont endeavours to establish the successive elevation of differ- 

 ent mountain-chains, and the supposed law of parallelism in 

 the lines of contemporaneous elevation. 



M. de Beaumont's proofs that different chains were raised at 

 different epochs. ' We observe/ says M. Elie de Beaumont, 

 ' along nearly all mountain-chains, when we attentively examine 

 them, that the most recent rocks extend horizontally up to the 

 foot of such chains, as we should expect would be the case if 

 they were deposited in seas or lakes of which these mountains 

 have partly formed the shores ; whilst the other sedimentary 

 beds tilted up, and more or less contorted on the flanks of the 

 mountains, rise in certain points even to their highest crests f.' 

 There are, therefore, in each chain two classes of sedimentary 

 rocks, the ancient or inclined beds, and the newer or horizontal. 

 It is evident that the first appearance of the chain itself was an 

 event ' intermediate between the period when the beds, now 

 upraised, were deposited., and that when the strata were pro- 

 duced horizontally at its feet.' 



No. 82. 



Thus the chain A received its present form after the depo- 

 sition of the strata 6, which have undergone great movements, 

 and before the deposition of the group c, in which the strata 

 have not suffered derangement. 



* See above, p. 148. 

 f Phil, Mag. and Annals, No. 58, new Series, p. 242. 



