Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Physical geography / by Mary Somerville. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Chap. III. GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. § 5. Geological notice.—The Ciystalline and upper Palseozoic formations are enormously developed in nortlieru Europe; tlie Secondary and Tertiary are not less so in tlie central part of the ■continent; and although the latter continue to be the prevailing strata in the S., they are so much mixed with crystalline rocks that the geology becomes very complicated. Norway, Sweden, Lapland, find Finland are for the most part Crystalline, while the rest of northern Eussia belongs to the upper Palteozoic period. Siberia, and a long ti-act S. of it, are formed of Secondary strata. The whole of southern Eussia, to the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian, belongs to the Secondary and Tertiary periods; while tertiary rocks prevail throughout Germany, Denmark, and Holland, to the shores of the North Sea. Metamorphic slates are highly developed in southern and eastern Em-ope, and form some of the most ele-\-ated pinnacles of the Alpine crest and its offsets, of the Caucasus and principal chains in Greece and Tm-key in Eiu'ope; but the Secondary Eossiliferous strata constitute the chief mass and often rise to the highest summits ; indeed, secondary limestones •occupy a great portion of the high land of eastern Europe. Calcareous rocks form two great mountain zones on each side of the central chain of the Alps, and rise occasionally to altitudes of 10,000 or 12,000 ft. They constitute a great portion of the central range of the Apennines, and fill the greater part of Sicily. They are extensivel}^ developed in Turkey in Em-ope, where the plateau of Bosnia, with its high lands on the S., part of Macedonia, and Albania with its islands, are principally com- posed of them.^ Tertiary strata of great thickness rest on the flanks of the Alps, and rise in places to a height of 5000 ft.; zones of the Pliocene period flank the Apennines on each side, filled with organic remains, and half of Sicily is covered with tei-tiary strata. With the exception of the islands in the Baltic, ^nd a disti-ict S. of the Gulf of Finland, which is Palteozoic, that formation, often mixed with granite, prevails near or along the shores of the Atlantic, but not continuously. A district at North ■Cape is Palaeozoic; the Lofoden Isles are of granite; it again .appears in small patches in the Norwegian mountains, which are Palaeozoic. The whole of Brittany consists of these two formations, the granite being still more abimdant, and stretching diagonally across France in patches, even to the shores of the Mediterranean. .But in no part of Europe do the rocks under consideration abound ])liy8ics and mathematical investigations; and to tlie later researches of Professor Tj'ndali, ■\vliicli have modilied, on some secondary points, Professor Porbes' views and discoveries. 1 M. Boue.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21961086_0071.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
