44 PEOCEEBrN-GS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



" Haupthebung," the last " Krisis," which was as great as all the 

 others put together, must have been at the end of the Tertiary periods. 

 M. Desor traces all the great features of the Alps to this time — folds, 

 inversions, comhes, and cluses, and the general uniformity of dips 

 throughout the whole section. The Eigi and the Speer are men- 

 tioned as instances of inyersion in the Molasse, on the authority, I 

 believe, of M. Studer's more recent observations. 



Such is the latest and most tragic history of the Alps. It fully 

 confirms the statement with which I started, that a school of geology, 

 obsolete elsewhere, still holds its ground in those mountain-regions. 



Any general notice of the geology of the Alps must be altogether 

 deficient without mention of the latest opinions of M. Studer, whose 

 great work on the geology of Switzerland is the acknowledged 

 authority. I have not had access to this book. My object, however, 

 has only been to show, by sufficient references, what is the generally 

 received view regarding one or two important features of Alpine 

 geology. I have omitted no available source of information ; the 

 works of most of the best-known observers have been consulted ; and, 

 from the frequent allusion made by other wiiters to M. Studer, I 

 am pretty confident that his views upon those points coincide more 

 or less with what I have represented. He is, I believe, the authority 

 for the inversion of the rocks in the Eigi and Speer. 



The opinions to which I would draw attention, as universally 

 applied to the Alps, are the abnormal (faulted) nature of the actual 

 boundary of the Molasse with the rocks of the higher Alps, and the 

 explanation of this, as weU as of the contortion of the inner zone of 

 Molasse, by the direct upheaval of the main mountain-mass. In 

 almost all the works referred to there may be found passages to the 

 eff'ect that aU the features of the Alps are the result of one long- 

 continued action. These professions can be little more than nominal 

 concessions to modern views ; at least every special explanation 

 and many of the alleged facts seem to me to be essentially incon- 

 sistent with such views. 



III. Se3:tch oe so]\rE Stjbhi]u:alata]!«- SECTioifs. 

 There is a very striking similarity between the sections along the 

 southern base of the Himalaya and the northern base of the Alps. 

 One can scarcely doubt that the histories of the two regions have a 

 corresponding agreement. I must refer to my memoir on the Sub- 

 himalayan rocks of Korth "Western India * for a detailed description 

 of the sections ; I can here only point out some leading featiu'es. 

 The clays, sands, and conglomerates of the Sivaliks are undistin- 

 guishable in hand specimens from those of the Molasse. In both 

 regions the coarser deposits prevail towards the top. The distant 

 hills on the south of the Gangetic plains form only nominal repre- 

 sentatives of the ranges which bound the great valley of Switzerland 

 on the north; and the ancient alluvium forming those plains 

 conceals completely the southern extension of the Sivalik strata 

 beyond the limits of a narrow zone fringing the mountains. Within 

 * Mem. Geol. Survey of India, vol. iii. pt. 2. 



