Structure of the Eastern Alps. 407 



great movements of elevation, and that these movements propagated their 

 influence in the direction of the Eastern Alps. The facts we have just stated 

 are in accordance with this theory. 



Now, if we extend our examination to the eastern limits of the chain, we 

 look in vain for great, erratic blocks like those above described. We are aware 

 of the extreme difficulty of proving a negative proposition : but we may at 

 least venture to assert, that in the plains of Styria, and in parts of the basin 

 of Vienna which come up to the very confines of the Alps, boulders of this kind, 

 if they do exist at all, are almost unknown. To what then are we to attribute 

 their absence ? The answer seems to be obvious. The forces of elevation 

 which dislocated and contorted the newest tertiary groups of the Western 

 Alps, have left the tertiary groups of Styria and Vienna almost as horizontal 

 as when they were deposited ; and the forces which propelled enormous 

 masses of granite over the mountains of Savoy, exerted little or no influence 

 on the eastern skirts of the chain. 



Chap. VI. 



Concluding Remarks on the Successive Formations of the Eastern Alps — 

 Different Periods of Elevation — Modifications of the several Deposits since 

 those Periods, Sgc. 



The subjects treated of in the five preceding chapters are so numerous, 

 and at the same time so disjointed, that it seems expedient, before we termi- 

 nate this paper, to recapitulate some of the leading facts already stated, and 

 to review the conclusions we have drawn from them. Before we proceed to 

 this task we wish to observe, that the accompanying Plate (XXXVI.) exhibits 

 a series, not of ideal, but of real sections. The first figure is indeed partly 

 an exception to this remark ; as it merely represents, in a general way, the 

 collocation of the great mineral masses on both sides of the central axis of 

 the chain, without giving the contortions and disruptions on any known 

 transverse line. The other sections are all founded on direct observations ; 

 and represent, or are at least intended to represent, the position, dip, and 

 (as far as so minute a scale admits) somewhat even of the external form and 

 relative height of the several groups. 



Very few of our conclusions are to be considered as purely hypothetical : 

 they are, for the most part, founded on facts which we have endeavoured, to 

 the best of our power and opportunities of observation, to describe and in- 

 terpret correctly. In subjects of such extreme complication it would be ridi- 



