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Our attention was now directed to what we could observe with respect to the schisti, of which we had most beautiful views and most perfect sections. Here are two objects to be held in view, in making those observations; the original formation or stratification of the schisti, and the posterior operations by which the present state of things has been procured.
Such figures as these are extremely common in our sand-stone strata; but this is an object which I never had distinctly observed in the alpine schisti; although, considering that the original of those schisti was strata of sand, and formed in water, there was no reason to doubt of such a thing being found.
I had often seen the pudding-stone in great masse; in the banks of the Whiteader, as it comes out of the mountains, but then I had not seen its connection neither, on the one hand, with the schisti, nor, on the other, with the sand-stone strata.
I may also give for example the African Brechia, which is a pudding-stone of the same nature. This stone is composed of granites or porphyries, serpentines and schisti, extremely indurated and perfectly consolidated.
Thus every appearance is found by which the primitive schisti are perfectly resembled, both as to their original formation and their accidents, with the strata, which are acknowledged by naturalists as being the common operation of the sea. Our author then gives an account of the Passage de Fours, in which he makes the following observations: Ǥ 776.
This also will appear evident, when it is considered that it has been from the appearances in this very land, independent of those of the alpine schisti, that the present theory has been established. By thus admitting a primary and secondary in the formation of our land, the present theory will be confirmed in all its parts.
It is also certain that the tops of our schistus mountains had been in the bottom of the sea at the time when our secondary strata had begun to be formed; for the pudding-stone on the top of our Lammermuir mountains, as well as the secondary strata upon the vertical schisti of the Alps and German mountains, affords the most irrefragable evidence of that fact.
But however rare this example, it is equally decisive of the question, Whether the alpine schisti have had a similar origin as the other strata of the globe, in which are found abundance of animal and vegetable bodies, or their relics? and we are authorised to say, that since those perfect alpine strata of Dauphiné have had that origin, all the alpine schisti of the globe have been originally formed in a similar manner.
Here is an observation which certainly agrees with that given by M. de Luc, and would seem to confirm this conclusion, that strata had been deposited upon those schisti after they had been changed from their natural or horizontal position, and become vertical; at the same time, this conclusion is not of necessary consequence, without examining concomitant appearances, and finding particular marks by which this operation might be traced; for the simply finding horizontal strata, placed above vertical or much inclined schiste, is not sufficient, of itself, to constitute that fact, while it is acknowledged that every species of fracture, dislocation, and contortion, is to be found among the displaced strata of the globe.
I begged that he would inquire of Mr Wright, at the Low-wood Inn, for those objects which he was to endeavour to procure for me, and to examine the limestone quarry in which I had found the specimen with entrochi. He went through another part of those primary mountains, and has found examples of this kind in the schisti; concerning which he has written me the following account.
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