53

Picot de la Peyrouse*, describing thesame mountains tells us, that the regularity,the sportiveness, the caprice of the verticalbeds of sand and limestone, heterogeneousnodules of one rock in the heart of an-other, the uniform vertically of the bedswhich compose the primitive ridges andsecondary summits, vertical beds traversedby horizontal ones, preclude the idea ofany sudden or irregular force having shiftedthe rocks of the Pyrenees into their actualposture from one originally horizontal.

Humboldt b has observed “ strata” of

r.lav-slate dinnincr "M-W. at an an crip nf

70° for fifteen successive leagues. Canit be imagined that these strata were

it be imagined that these strata were ! J

once horizontal, and consequently fifteenleagues thick? or that falling, they founda chasm large enough to receive them ?But he goes further, and maintains thisto be the common inclination of all pri-mitive strata throughout the globe. Hisargument would be strong, if the facts

a Journal des Mines, vol. vii. p. 65. *

b Journal de Physique, vol. liii. p. 47. :

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