e whole formation into a series of waves. The ascending
pressure may be limited in its sphere of operation; the lateral one
necessarily affects extensive tracts of country, and the eminences it
produces vanish only by degrees, like the waves left in the wake of a
ship. The Savoy mountains have undergone both these kinds of violence in
very complex modes and at different periods, so that it becomes almost
impossible to trace separately and completely the operation of any given
force at a given point.

294. The speaker's intention was to have analyzed, as far as possible,
the action of the forming forces in one wave of simple elevation, the
Mont Saleve, and in another of lateral compression, the Mont Brezon: but
the investigation of the Mont Saleve had presented unexpected
difficulty. Its facade had been always considered to be formed by
vertical beds, raised into that position during the tertiary periods;
the speaker's investigations had, on the contrary, led him to conclude
that the appearance of vertical beds was owing to a peculiarly sharp and
distinct cleavage, at right angles with the beds, but nearly parallel to
their strike, elsewhere similarly manifested in the Jurassic series of
Savoy, and showing itself on the fronts of most of the precipices formed
of that rock. The attention of geologists was invited to the
determination of this question.

The compressed wave of the Brezon, more complex in arrangement, was more
clearly defined. A section of it was given, showing the reversed
position of the Hippurite limestone in the summit and lower precipices.
This limestone wave was shown to be one of a great series, running
parallel with the Alps, and constituting an undulatory district,
chiefly composed of chalk beds, separated from the higher limestone
district of the Jura and Lias by a long trench or moat, filled with
members of the tertiary series--chiefly nummulite limestones and flysch.
This trench might be followed from Faverges, at the head of the lake of
Annecy, across Savoy. It separated Mont Vergi from the Mont Dorons, and
the Dent d'Oche from the Dent du Midi; then entered Switzerland,
separating the Moleson from the Diablerets; passed on through the
districts of Thun and Brientz, and, dividing itself into two, caused the
zigzagged form of the lake of Lucerne. The principal branch then passed
between the high Sentis and the Glarnisch, and broke into confusion in
the Tyrol. On the north side of this trench the