“Cette pierre porte les caracteres des calcaires les plus anciennes; sa couleur est grise, son grain assez fin, on n’y appercoit aucun vestige de corps organises; ses couches sont peu epaisses, ondees et coupees frequemment par des fentes paralleles entr’elles et perpendiculaires a leurs plans.  On trouve aussi parmi ces fragmens des breches calcaires grises.”

Here is a mountain which will rank with the most primitive of the earth; But why? only because it is extremely consolidated without any mark of organised body.  Had there been in this mountain but one single shell, we should not then have scrupled to conclude that the origin of this lofty mountain had been the same with every marble or limestone in the earth.  But though, from the structure of this stone, there is no mark of its having been formed immediately of the calcareous parts of animals, there is every mark of those calcareous strata having been formed like other marbles by deposit in the waters of the globe.

These two things are also homologated by the equal or perfect consolidation of their substance; for, as it is to be proved that all stratified marbles have been consolidated by the fusion of their substance, we must attribute the same consolidating cause to those alpine masses; the frequent veins that divide those calcareous strata which M. de Saussure has here described, also prove the nature of the consolidating cause, (see Chap. 1. page 111.).

This mountain, considered by itself, may perhaps afford no data by which a naturalist might read the circumstances of its origin.  But, Is a theory of the earth to be formed upon such a negative observation? and, Is there any particular in this mountain, that may not be shown in others of which the origin is not in any degree doubtful?

It is not to be disputed, that there are parts of the solid body of our earth which may be considered as primary or prior, compared with others that are posterior, in relation to the time of their formation, and much less changed with regard to the state in which they had been originally formed:—­But it is here denied, that there are any parts of the earth which do not appear to have had the same origin with all the rest, so far as this consists in the collection of materials deposited at the bottom of the waters[21]; for there is no solid mass of land that may not be traced to this origin, either from its composition, or from its local connection with other masses, the nature of which in this respect are known.  We have already given examples of this from sufficient authority.  The evidence, therefore, of those primary masses being original in relation to the natural operations of the globe, is reduced to this assertion, that there are no vestiges of organised bodies to be found in those primary masses.  Let us now examine how far this testimony for the originality of those masses is to be admitted in fact and sound reasoning.

[Note 21:  There are no collection of those alpine masses in which may not be found in some of them sand, mica, and gravel; but these materials prove the existence of an earth, on which those fragments of greater masses had been formed, and more or less worn by attrition.]