Having thus seen the structure of what are commonly termed the secondary mountains, a structure which prevails generally in all parts of the land, at least in all that which is not primitive in the estimation of naturalists, who suppose a different origin to different parts, it will now be thought a most interesting view of nature, to see the same accurate examination of the structure of the earth, from those secondary mountains of Geneva to the center of the Alps, where we find such a variety of mountains of different materials, (whether they shall be called primitive or secondary) and where such opportunity is found for seeing the structure of those mountains.  For, if we shall find the same principles, here prevailing in the formation of those supposed primitive mountains as are found over all the earth in general, and as are employed in fashioning or shaping every species of material, it will be allowed us to conclude, that, in this situation of things, we have what is general in the formation of land, notwithstanding imaginary distinctions of certain parts which had been formed one way, and of others which are supposed to be operations of an opposite nature.

This question therefore will be properly decided in our author’s journey to the Alps; for, if we shall there find calcareous strata perfectly consolidated, as they should be by the extreme operation of subterranean heat and fusion; if we find materials of every species formed after the manner of stratification; and if all those different strata variously consolidated shall be found in all positions, similar to those which we have now seen in the examination of the Jura and Saleve, with this difference, that the deplacement and contorsion may be more violent in those highly consolidated strata, we shall then generalise an operation by which the present state of things must have been produced; and in those regular appearances, we shall acknowledge the operation of an internal heat, and of an elevating power.

“Sec. 287.  Les pentes rapides des bancs dont est forme le mole, les directions variees de ces memes bancs sont aussi conformes a une observation generale et importante, que le montagnes secondaires sont d’autant plus irregulieres et plus inclinees qu’elles s’approchent plus des primitives.

“A la verite, quelque montagnes calcaires meme a de grandes distances des primitives ont ca et la des couches inclinees et meme quelquefois verticales; mais ces exception locales n’empechent pas qu’il ne soit vrai qu’en general, les bancs calcaires, que l’on trouve dans les plaines qui sont eloignees des hautes montagnes, ont leurs bancs ou horizontaux ou peu inclines; tandis, qu’au contraire, les montagnes qui s’approchent, du centre des grands chaines, n’ont que tres-rarement des couches horizontales, et presentent presque par-tout des couches fortement et diversement inclinees.”

That is to say, that there is no place of the earth, however plain and horizontal in general may be the strata, in which examples are not found of this manner of disordering or displacing strata; at the same time they are more crested and more disordered in proportion to the mountainous nature of the country.  Here is the proposition contained in that general observation of natural history; and this is a proposition which either naturally flows from the theory, or is perfectly consistent with it.