now compare these appearances with those met with in other countries, and we shall find, that upon a diminutive scale, they coincide for the most part with each other, and that they lead us very strongly to believe that we are approaching a primitive country, or rather, that we are upon the verge of it. Thus, upon the skirts of the primitive mountains, where the Rhine rises, and at the opening of the great valley through which that river flows, enormous masses of conglomerate breccia are found. I have followed them for the space of several miles, from the borders of the lake of Wallenstadt, on the road to Zurich. It is also upon the same line, but a little more to the eastward, and on the skirts of the chain of mountains of St. Gothard, that are found those masses of pudding-stone which form mountains of so great an elevation as the Rigiberg,[1] the Ruffiberg, and the Albisberg; and turning W.N.W. extend into the Entlibuchthal, where I have seen mural precipices of it, of a considerable height between Schoepfheim and Hochstetten. I have also seen those mentioned by Saussure at Valorsine in the valley of Trient;[2] on the left bank of the Rhone, between Martigny and St. Maurice in the Valais;[3] as well as those which are found in the beautiful valley of Loch Ness in Scotland.
- ↑ Mr. Kirwan considers the Conglomerate of Rigiberg as a calcareo-argillaceous breccia, which he calls Farcilite. Geol. Essays, p. 252.
I believe he might have equally comprehended it under the same head as the aggregate which he has called Semi-Protolite (Geol. Ess. p. 256), for fragments of granite are included in it, though in small quantity. I have seen some at least in the detached blocks of breccia of the Ruffiberg, near the village of Steinen in the valley of Goldau; and what is remarkable, it is a granite, having the felspar of a brick-red colour, a variety very rare in the high Alps.
- ↑ Voyages dans les Alpes, §§ 687, 688, 689.
- ↑ Ibidem, § 1053.
