Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Saw No Petrifactions In It; But The Inhabitants Assert
That Considerable Masses Of Shells Are Found At Great Heights.
The
same phenomenon occurs in the country about Salzburg.* (* In
Switzerland, the solitary beds of shells, at the height
Of from
1300 to 2000 toises (in the Jungfrauhorn, the Dent de Morcle, and
the Dent du Midi), belong to transition limestone.) At the
Cuchivano the alpine limestone contains beds of marly clay,*
(*Mergelschiefer.) three or four toises thick; and this geological
fact proves on the one hand the identity of the alpenkalkstein with
the zechstein of Thuringia, and on the other the affinity of
formation existing between the alpine limestone and that of the
Jura.* (* The Jura and the Alpine limestone are kindred formations,
and they are sometimes difficult to be distinguished, where they
lie immediately one upon another, as in the Apennines. The alpine
limestone and the zechstein, famous among the geologists of
Freyberg, are identical formations. This identity, which I noticed
in the year 1793 (Uber die Grubenwetter), is a geological fact the
more interesting, as it seems to unite the northern European
formations to those of the central chain. It is known that the
zechstein is situated between the muriatiferous gypsum and the
conglomerate (ancient sandstone); or where there is no
muriatiferous gypsum, between the slaty sandstone with roestones
(buntesandstein, Wern.), and the conglomerate or ancient sandstone.
It contains strata of schistous and coppery marl (bituminoce mergel
and kupferschiefer) which form an important object in the working
of mines at Mansfeld in Saxony, near Riegelsdorf in Hesse, and at
Hasel and Prausnitz, in Silesia.
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