152 



GRANITE MOUNTAINS OF ENGLAND 



they must all have been elevated at the same time. — See Plate II. 

 fig. 2., where the relative situation of the beds of upper secondary 

 limestone is represented, a, 



At Charnwood Forest, in Leicestershire, very highly inclined beds 

 of granitic and slate rocks are covered with horizontal beds of the 

 upper secondary strata, analogous to those in the Alps. — See Plate 

 II. fig. 4. a. a. Now it is evident that the beds of granitic and slate 

 rocks were raised before the horizontal strata were deposited upon 

 them. Hence we attain the knowledge of an interesting fact in the 

 natural history of our island : its beds of primitive and transition 

 rocks were raised before the beds in the mountains of Savoy and 

 Switzerland, nor can this conclusion be invalidated, unless we admit, , 

 what would be contrary to analogy, that secondary strata, possessing J 

 the same geological relations and the same organic remains, were I 

 formed at different epochs. I have cited the Charnwood Forest J 

 hills, because there the proof is more direct and palpable than at the ■ 

 Malvern Hills or elsewhere, for the horizontal upper secondary strata 9 

 may be seen resting immediately on highly inclined beds of granitic 9 

 and schistose rocks. 



The horizontal beds resting on the Charnwood Forest granite and 

 slate, are composed of sandstone (a part of the red marie and sand- 

 stone formation), and, at a little distance, the sandstone is covered by 

 strata of lias limestone, e, which determine its relative age. In some 

 parts, the sandstone strata also cover the coal strata ; the latter, d, 

 rise, very abruptly as they approach the granite in the north. At the 

 Vosges mountains in France, the same red marie and sandstone, as- 

 sociated with lias, covers the granite and coal strata unconformably. 



When M. Daubuisson published his Traitede Geognosie in 1819, 

 he asserted, that the beds of granite in the Alps were raised into their 

 present vertical or highly inclined position, soon after their original 

 formation. I visited the Alps in the two following years, and the , 

 appearances presented by the secondary strata compelled me to draw | 

 a very different inference respecting the period when the beds of 

 granite were elevated, which I stated in the second volume of my 

 Travels, published in 1 823. 



" One important fact may be deduced from these elevated beds of 

 pudding-stone, sandstone, and other strata, comparatively modern, i; 

 ranging conformably with beds of granite and gneiss; namely, that j 

 the beds of granite did not acquire their elevated position till after j 

 the formation of the secondary strata. In England, the elevation of 1 

 the beds of granite was anterior to the deposition of the upper strata, 

 consisting of magnesian limestone, lias limestone, oolite, chalk, and I 



* The calcareous mountains in the outer ranges of the Alps, removed from the 

 central granite, arc often bent into arches as represented in Plate II. fig. 2. x, y, z. 

 Such beds, of course, cannot be conformable to those nearer the granite. 



