ZURICH AND GLARUS. 
175 
The Glarus Mountains. 
The district of Glarus is indeed one of the most 
interesting in the whole of Switzerland. If we ascend 
the mountains on the south of the Walen See we 
find everywhere the Verrucano as the basal rock; on 
it lie Rdthidolomite, Lias, Brown Jura, Malm, Cre- 
taceous strata and Eocene, — all, whenever present, 
in their regular order. But farther to the south all 
this is changed, and the strata are actually inverted. 
The newest rock. Eocene, is the lowest, and on it 
lie successively the Cretaceous, Malm, Brown Jura, 
Lias, ROthidolomite, and Verrucano, which caps 
several of the mountain summits. This inversion of 
the strata covers a space of over 1 1 30 square km., 
and has long been a great puzzle to geologists. 
Escher, who studied the district with great care, 
came to the conclusion that the facts could only be 
explained by a great fold, turned over as it were so 
as to invert all the rocks. A similar inversion takes 
place on the south-east, so that there is a great 
double fold, starting from the Walen See on the 
north, and the Rhine valley, — say from Waldhaus 
Films to near Chur on the south. The facts seemed 
so incredible that Escher hesitated to publish it. He 
told Heim that if he did, no one would believe it. 
