SCENERY OF SWITZERLAND. 
32 
others Devonian, Carboniferous, and even Jurassic, 
but no Swiss geologists consider that the Crystalline 
Schists of the Central “Massives” of the Alps are 
metamorphic Mesozoic rocks.* The Schists are 
generally intensely folded and crumpled. The pre- 
sence of boulders of foliated Crystalline Schist in the 
Carboniferous Puddingstones, proves that the folia- 
tion was original, or at least anterior to the Coal 
period. ** 
The problems, however, presented by these rocks 
are, as Geikie says, so many and difficult that com- 
paratively little progress has yet been made in their 
solution. 
The Carboniferous Period. 
The earliest fossiliferous rocks in Switzerland be- 
long to the Coal or Carboniferous period. The older 
Cambrian and Silurian rocks, which elsewhere present 
so rich a flora and fauna, and attain a thickness of 
many thousand feet, are perhaps represented in 
Switzerland by some of the Crystalline Schists, 
though this is not yet certainly proved. 
A belt of Carboniferous strata extends from 
Dauphine along the valley of the lsere and the Arve, 
* Heim, Quart. Jour, Geol. Soc. 1890. 
** Lory, Int. Geol. Co?ig. 1888. 
