than preserve theory, gives up the formation of the alpine strata by
crystallization. Let us now see how he acknowledges the evidence of
softness in those strata. It is in his description of the Val de Mont
Joye, Tom. 2d. page 173.

«Ce sont des roches dures à fond de quartz, ou de feldspath blanc,
confusément cristallisé, avec des veines noires de mica ou de schorl en
petites lames. Ces veines, qui pénètrent tout au travers de la pierre,
sont la section des couches dont elle est composée; on les voit, ici
planes et parallèles, entr'elles; la en zig-zags, renfermés entre de
plans parfaitement parallèles; accident dont les étoffes tout-à-la-fois
rayées et chinées donnent encore le dessin. Ces anfractuosités des
couches sont-elles un effect de la crystallization, ou bien d'un
mouvement de pression qui a refoulé des couches planes lorsqu'elles
étoient encore flexibles, après quoi d'autres couches planes sont venues
se former sur elles.»

M. de Saussure has no idea of strata formed at the bottom of the sea,
being afterwards softened by means of heat and fusion. He had already
given up the supposition of those vertical or highly inclined strata
having been formed in their present position; but had this geologist
seen that it was the same cause by which those strata had both been
raised in their place and softened in their substance, I am persuaded
that he would have freely acknowledged, in this zig-zag shape, which is
so common in the alpine strata, the fullest evidence of the softening
and the elevating power.

At the _Tour de Fols_, near St Bernard, M. de Saussure found an
appearance the most distinct of its kind, and worthy to be recorded as a
leading fact in matters of geology. _Voyages dans les Alpes_, Tome 2d.