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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.
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