242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 13, 



the east bank of the lake of Lowerz, where it marks the junction be- 

 tween the lofty cretaceous peaks of the Mythen above Schwyz, and 

 the supracretaceous rocks of the Hacken pass and Lowerz. But here 

 dislocated masses of flysch and fractured nummulite rocks are inter- 

 calated between the cretaceous escarpment under which they seem to 

 dip, and those great sloping masses of conglomerate, which, consti- 

 tuting the Rossberg so celebrated for its landslip, appear in their 

 turn to underlie the nummulite zone. This inverted position is again 

 well displayed as you follow the same masses towards Einsiedeln, 

 where the nagelflue overlying the middle and lower molasse is in 

 distinct apposition to an escarpment of nummulite limestone, which 

 dips rapidly away under mountains of flysch that are also thrown off 

 to the S.S.E., or towards the axis of the Alps (fig. 13). This phse- 

 nomenon is common along the northern flanks of the chain. It is, 

 in fact, that prevalent feature throughout the external zone of the 

 Eastern Alps on which Professor Sedgwick and myself insisted ; but 

 at that time we had not an adequate conception of the intensity of 

 these movements, by which, on lines parallel to each other, the oldest 

 portion of each group has often been thrown up on the external or 

 younger side of the Alps, with its last-formed member let down as it 

 were, so as to be in contact with the oldest rock in the tract, and with 

 all the appearance of passing under it ! 



The distinctions between regular succession and discordance are ad- 

 mirably displayed around the Griinten mountain and between it and 

 the higher Alps ; for after an exhibition of perfect symmetry (figs. 17 

 and 18), we find the flysch truncated (fig. 19) against a wall of cre- 

 taceous rocks. We pass through that wall by the gorge of the 

 Hirsch-sprung, and again we have undulations and slopes occupied 

 by upper members of the series which are entirely lost on the steep 

 side of the anticlinal. Again, at the outer or northernmost escarp- 

 ment of the Griinten (fig. 18), we have the same tremendous fault as 

 that before spoken of along the Rigi and Rossberg, showing the 

 nagelflue and molasse in juxtaposition with the lower neocomiau. 

 In this last case, however, the molasse is rather thrown off to dip 

 away from the secondary rocks ; but along the same line of fault, and 

 immediately to the west of the river lUer, all the mountains of nagel- 

 flue again appear to plunge directly under the zone of flysch. They 

 there mark the grand outer line of disseverment between the molasse 

 and all pre-existing strata, which trending from near Immenstadt in 

 the Allgau, passes by Dornbirn and Haslach* south of Bregenz. 

 This same line of fracture is again magnificently displayed in the 

 canton Appenzell, along the precipitous north-western face of the 

 Hoher Sentis. There, the upper portions of the enormous masses 

 of molasse and nagelflue, dipping away to the S.E. from the St. Gal- 

 len axis before-mentioned, occupy mountain pasture tracts f, whose 



* At Haslach near Dornbirn, on the right bank of the Rhine, the nummuhte 

 rock is so collocated, that any one ignorant of fossils would really believe that it 

 passed under the limestones of the Stauffen, composed of lower and upper neoco- 

 mian rocks. 



t Handwyler Hohe, Kronberg, Petersalp, &c., these conglomerates range into 

 the Speer mountain, and thence to Wesen. 



