82 
SCENERY OF SWITZERLAND. 
rapid rivers at this period. These ancient mountains, 
however, were removed by denudation, and the 
whole country sunk below the Sea. Between the 
Eocene and the Miocene was a second period of 
disturbance, and all the strata, including the Eocene, 
were folded conformably together.* The main eleva- 
tion of the Alps was, however, between the Miocene 
Fig. 22. —Carboniferous Folds on the Bilerten Grat. 
and the Glacial periods. Miocene strata attain in 
the Rigi a height of 6000 feet. By this much at 
least then the Alps must have been raised since the 
close of this comparatively recent period. 
“It is strange to reflect,” says Geikie, “that the 
enduring materials out of which so many of the 
mountains, cliffs, and pinnacles of the Alps have been 
formed are of no higher geological antiquity than the 
* Heim, Mech. d. Qebirgsb., vol. 1. 
