On the Age of Mountains, 



529 



It is already observed, that flots bjerge repose in layers. 

 In plains, these layers are found as we should expect in an 

 almost horizontal position. But if we approach the moun- 

 tains, this position is generally altered ; on the sides of the 

 mountains the layers are very slanting, and even sometimes 

 they stand perpendicular. 



Are we now to think it likely, that these oblique layers of 

 flots bjerge, which we see on the sides of the mountains, 

 were deposited in this oblique position. Is it not far more 

 natural to suppose that they also, as well as the contempo- 

 rary layers of the same masses in the plains, have originally 

 formed horizontal layers, when those mountains which 

 they rest against were lifted up above the former surface 

 of the earth ? 



Exact geological observations have shewn, that those 

 limestone layers, composing the summit of Buet in Savoy, and 

 Montperdu in the Pyrenees, are identical at an elevation 

 of from 9 to 12,000 feet, with the chalk strata, on the 

 coast of the English Channel. If the fluid which depo- 

 sited this chalk, had stood 9 to 12,000 feet high, it would 

 have covered the whole of France, and such-like masses 

 should be found on all heights under 9,000 feet. But it 

 has been observed in the North of France, where these 

 masses present themselves most regularly, that the chalk 

 never reaches to a height of more than 600 feet above the 

 present surface of the sea. Another observation which Saus- 

 sure has already drawn attention to, seems even still more 

 convincing. The flots bjerge is sometimes composed al- 

 most entirely of boulders of a round or oval shape, and in 

 those places where the layers lie horizontal, these stones 

 also lie horizontal, namely, on the side, as an egg in a liquid 

 matter remains not on the end. 



But when the deposited mountain strata have a slanting 

 position, where for instance they slant under an angle of 45°, 

 the long axis of these stones forms also the same angle with 



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