In the vicinity of Mont Blanc. 195 



crystalline form ; and that this aboriginal outline, remaining to a 

 vast extent persistent to the present day, has given and still pre- 

 serves to that country the chief features of its configuration : i.e., its 

 grand fiords and lakes, its main valleys, and its mountain ridges. 



This memoir was prepared to oj)pose the ingenious views of 

 Mr. Archibald Geikie, in his attractive and highly popular work, the 

 " Scenery of Scotland viewed in connection with Physical Geology." 

 In it Mr. Geikie points out, that, as the troughs or barrier- shaped 

 strata often constitute the summits of lofty mountains, and that as the 

 deep valleys are often the seat of great axial lines, so it follows that 

 vast masses of once intervening and connecting strata must have been 

 removed by erosion. This great erosion he attributes to long-con- 

 tinued atmospheric agencies during countless ages, including the 

 action of glaciers, and the melting of the great sheets of snow and ice 

 which during the glacial period rendered Scotland a region like the 

 modern Greenland. 



But, leaving the theoretical questions of Scottish Geology to be 

 worked out on their own merits, we know, as regards the Alps, that 

 Studer, Favre, and indeed all those geologists from the days of de 

 Saussure who have best studied the chain, are of opinion, that most 

 of the deep depressions and Alpine lakes (which are either at right 

 angles to, or parallel to the general direction of the rocks) are mainly 

 due to former subterranean movements, though doubtlessly much 

 modified in subsequent ages by atmospheric agencies, and particularly 

 by the action of glaciers, snow, ice, and waters descending upon steep 

 declivities. 



When, therefore, we see how the consideration of the inner struc- 

 ture of the Alps has been passed over by some casual visitors, who 

 seek to account for much of the main outlines of the earth by external 

 agencies, and who have gone so far as even to refer to ice action the 

 excavation of these deep cavities and lake basins, which to practical 

 native geologists and other able and observant thinkers are 

 manifestly due to older geological forces, we fall back on the ex- 

 clamation of one of \)i\.Q sturdiest veterans among Alpine explorers, 

 the late Leopold von Buch, who, when the extreme glacier doctrines 

 were coming into fashion, and were tending to obliterrate the study 

 of all that he considered to be true Geology, fell on his knees, and 

 exclaimed — 



"0 sancte de Saussure, ora pro nobis!" R. I. M. 



Geological Society of London. — February 5th, 1868. — 1. " On 

 the Geological Structure of Argyllshire." By His Grace the Duke 

 of Argyll, K.T., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 



The object of the paper was to set forth some of the author's 

 reasons for not accepting the views propounded by Mr. Geikie in 

 his " Scenery of Scotland viewed in connexion with Physical 

 Geology." His Grace believes that, although the atmospheric 



