MEDLICOTT ALPS AND HIMALAYAS. tJ5 



to Calcutta during tlie monsoon that I have had the opportunity of 

 looking' into the literature of Alpine geology ; and I now venture to 

 offer the following paper as a small contribution to the subject. 



The progress of geology has not been equal. The more attractive 

 branches have been cultivated far beyond those that seem less 

 attractive ; thus, as both must frequently appear before the public 

 together, the effect is very incongruous. Such is the case presented 

 in even the most recent works on the geology of the Alps. Along- 

 side of the refined investigations of comparative palaeontology, one 

 finds stratigraphical features treated most loosely — from the point 

 of view of assumption, and with little or no examination of evidence. 

 The very language used in many cases would suggest that these 

 structural phenomena were the performances of some uncanny moun- 

 tain-sprites, rather than of forces or processes with which we had 

 any chance of becoming acquainted. The mischievous efi'ectsof this are 

 widespread ; besides shaking the scientific credit of the men who 

 can issue such uncritical work, and hence suggesting doubt in the 

 •value of their more special work, a shadow of darkness is thrown 

 over the whole science. Stratigraphy in these mountain-regions 

 is still appealed to in support of notions that have long since been 

 refused general acceptance in geology. It seems to be forgotten that 

 stratigraphy is the foundation of geology, as, without the initial phy- 

 sical fact of sedimentary superposition, palaeontology, as we know it, 

 could have had no existence. It is surely very unwise of the stu- 

 dents of this younger branch so soon to assume its independence, 

 while many of the positions from which it now provisionally works 

 are still unproved. This mutual development is not, indeed, likely 

 to take the exact form imagined by M. Barrande, in his speculation 

 on the relations of the liaute stratigrapJiie to the haute paleontologie* ; 

 but that the problem will one day or other be worked out, no true 

 natui'alist will doubt. For the present, however, neglect, not to say 

 contempt, seems to have fallen upon stratigraphy among a large 

 section of professing geologists. By some the word is even appro - 

 lariated to a department of palaeontology, to indicate merely the 

 hahitat of fossils : M. Marcou saysf, "Enstratigraphie iln'y a encore 

 a I'heure qu'il est, qu'un seul principe de vrai, de bon, d'utile ; c'est 

 de voir avec la plus grande exactitude, tout ce qui se trouve dans 

 chaque couche de rochcs." Elsewhere (p. 48) the same author seems 

 to make orography the geological complement of his "stratigraphy," 

 assigning England as the birthplace of the latter, and Switzerland 

 of the former. It wo aid seem preferable to leave the Avord oro- 

 graphy, as indicating the purely superficial features, to the physical 

 geographer ; and to use the term stratigraphy (in the same sense as 

 M. Barrande) to mean the structure of the earth, the relations of 

 rock-masses, as exhibiting the mode and sequence of events. If 

 orography be used in this signification (as implying the explanation 

 of superficial configuration), Switzerland has scarcely justified M. 

 Marcou's dictum ; it has been the stumbling-block rather than the 



* Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 2^ serie, vol. xi. 1853-54, p. 311. 

 t M. J. Marcou, \ Lettres eur les roches du Jura,' Paris, 1860, intr. p. 9. 



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