﻿Modern Attainments i7i Geology. 285 



central French plateau to the Sndeten. Nothing but the 

 following up of the structure of the horsts has made it 

 possible to recognize in the present fragmentary relief 

 the unity of the old German mountain system. 



The age of the Variscian range is exactly the same 

 as that of the Armorican, that is, the principal epoch 

 of folding belongs to the later Carboniferous. 



Proceeding further to the south we easily see that the 

 Alps and the Carpathians are nothing else than a third 

 system of similar curves. With overturned outer edges 

 the folds of the Alps stretch from the Durance through 

 Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. Their development 

 towards the north has been sharply hemmed in by 

 opposing horsts, the remnants of the Yariscian curve. So, 

 for instance, the folds of the Alps abut against the broken- 

 off eastern edge of the central plateau of France, which 

 rises in the neighborhood of Lyons, then against a 

 small gneiss cliff which rises near Dole in the neighbor- 

 hood of Besan^on, further against the southern edge 

 of the Black Forest, and as soon as they have passed the 

 southern end of the Bohemian mass, they turn towards 

 the north, being no longer hemmed in, forming the great 

 curve of the Carpathians. This system is called the 

 Alpine System of folds. It is much younger than the 

 preceding ones, and the principal epoch of its folding lies 

 in Tertiary times. The folds are continued westwards ; 

 towards the north overthrust strata are met with all 

 through Southern France as far as the Pyrenees. And 

 the Pyrenees lie south of Armorica in a way similar 

 to that of the Alps within the Variscian folds. 



If we now consider the main features of this picture, 

 the whole middle and north of Europe is seen to consist 

 of a series of folds or scales of the crust of the earth 

 thrust one over the other towards the north in such a way 

 that the northern folds are the oldest, that they were 

 broken down, that this process of degradation was 



