Those who are still unacquainted with the recently published observations on the structure of the Alps may find it difficult to enter into what has now to be stated; for the facts are, indeed, very different from the generally preconceived ideas of mountain formation. Nor can we wonder that many geologists for long held
[1] Weinschenk, C. R. _Congrès Géol._, 1900, p. 321, et seq.
back from admitting views which appeared so extreme. Receptivity is the first virtue of the scientific mind; but, with every desire to lay aside prejudice, many felt unequal to the acceptance of structural features involving a folding of the earth-crust in laps which lay for scores of miles from country to country, and the carriage of mountainous materials from the south of the Alps to the north, leaving them finally as Alpine ranges of ancient sediments reposing on foundations of more recent date. The historian of the subject will have to relate how some who finally were most active in advancing the new views were at first opposed to them. In the change of conviction of these eminent geologists we have the strongest proof of the convincing nature of the observations and the reality of the tectonic features upon which the recent views are founded.
The lesser mountains which stand along the northern border of the great limestone Alps, those known as the Préalpes, present the strange characteristic of resting upon materials younger than themselves. Such mountains as the remarkable-looking Mythen, near Schwyz, for instance, are weathered from masses of Triassic and Jurassic rock, and repose on the much more recent Flysch. In sharp contrast to the Flysch scenery, they stand as abrupt and gigantic erratics, which have been transported from the central zone of the Alps lying far to the south. They are strangers petrologically,
stratigraphically, and geographically,[1] to the locality in which they now occur. The exotic materials may be dolomites, limestones, schists, sandstones, or rocks of igneous origin. They show in every case traces of the severe dynamic actions to which they have been subjected in transit. The igneous, like the sedimentary, klippen, can be traced to distant sources; to the massif of Belladonne, to Mont Blanc, Lugano, and the Tyrol. The Préalpes are, in fact, mountains without local roots.