1832.] Progress of Geological Science. 523 



are ruptured and contorted, and often lifted up to the very pinnacles of the moun- 

 tains. But, on the contrary, wherever any tertiary formations approach the con- 

 fines of this system, they are stated to he either in a position almost as horizon- 

 tal as the surface of the waters in which they were deposited ; or if they have 

 been moved at all, it is hy forces uninfluenced by the parallels of the older chains. 

 And the same three conclusions, with a mere difference of dates, follow here as 

 in the former case. All the great parallel ridges and chains of this second system 

 must have been suddenly and violently elevated, and at a period of time between 

 the deposition of the chalk and the commencement of the tertiary groups ; and 

 the corresponding change in organic types is, in this instance, still more strik- 

 ing than in the former. 



" 3. The third system embraces a great number of parallel inequalities, hearing 

 ahout north -north -east and west-south-west, and includes the whole Western 

 Alps, from the neighbourhood of Marseilles to the volcanic ridges near the foot 

 of the Lake of Constance. And by an hypothetical, hut I think probable exten- 

 sion, it also takes in the whole of the great Scandinavian chain. 



" I cannot enter on the elaborate and satisfactory details by which it is proved 

 ■ — that all these great parallel inequalities in the region of the Western Alps had 

 their origin after the tertiary molasse, a deposit partaking of all the elevations and 

 contortions of the older strata — that the elevatory movements were sudden and 

 violent, and commenced at a time when tribes of mammalia (the remains of which 

 in England are hardly ever found except in the superficial gravel) flourished in 

 many parts of Europe — and that these movements were immediately succeeded by 

 great horizontal deposits of old diluvial gravel at the base of the Western Alps, and 

 probably also by that vast offshot of Scandinavian rocks which lie scattered over 

 the northern plains of Germany. 



" 4. The fourth system embraces many great parallel ridges, having a range 

 about east-north-east and west-south-west, and includes several considerable chains 

 in Provence, and nearly the whole chain of the Eastern Alps — from the great 

 flexure in the region of Mont Blanc to the Alps of the states of Austria. 



" It would be impossible to follow the author through details occupying a lar^e 

 portion of his volume. I may however state, that he proves the formations of the 

 Eastern aud Western Alps not to pass into each other by any flexure of the strata 

 coinciding with the bend of the whole chain ; but to meet at an angle marked by 

 a great double system of breaks and fissures, one passing in the direction of the 

 eastern, and the other of the western, portions of the chain. He further proves, 

 that the system of fissures in the line of the Eastern Alps is more recent than the 

 other system — that in the prolongation of this line, towards the west, the old dilu- 

 vial gravel has undergone movements of elevation — and that these movements 

 have been propagated to the lacustrine and volcanic regions of Auvergne. 



" On a review of the whole evidence, I think he has demonstrated, that there are 

 two distinct deposits of diluvial gravel near a portion of the Western Alps — that 

 the colossal mass of Mont Blanc, and at least a considerable portion of the Eastern 

 Alps, were elevated after the deposit of the older dilivium — and that the newer 

 diluvium (including all those enormous crystalline erratic blocks so admirably 

 described by Saussure) rolled off from the regions of the higher Alps during this last 

 period of their elevation. 



" There are six other supposed periods of elevation briefly considered in the re- 

 searches of M. Elie de Beaumont, each marked by distinct geographical features : 

 but I will not now detain you with their enumeration. If the generalizations to 



