Our author, who has examined the subject, inclines to think, that this
last has been the case. If, therefore, strata had been deposited upon
broken and bare rocks of schistus, it is probable that these had been
sunk in the sea after having been exposed to the atmosphere, and served
the purpose of land upon the globe.[31]
[Note 31: This is also supported by another very interesting observation
contained in this letter. M. de Luc observes, that in this country the
schistus is generally covered by strata of lime-stone, and that these
lime-stone strata are again covered with those of sand-stone, in which
are found a great many fragments of schistus lying flat. Therefore,
while those sand-stone strata were collecting at the bottom of the sea,
there had been rocks of schistus in some other place, from whence those
fragments bad been detached.]
An example of the same kind also occurs in the _Discours sur l'Histoire
Naturelle de la Suisse_; and this author of the _Tableaux de la Suisse_
has given a very distinct description of that appearance, which is
perhaps the more to be valued as a piece of natural history, as this
intelligent author does not pretend to any geological theory, but simply
narrates what he has seen, with such pertinent observations on
the subject as naturally must occur to a thinking person on the
spot.
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