296. What exists in two instances may exist in many, and, after these observations, I should be guilty of great inconsistency, in refusing to assent to the accounts of Pallas, De Luc, Saussure, and many other mineralogists, who so often represent granite as formed into strata. In some cases, however, it is certain, that the stratification they describe is extremely unlike that in the two instances just mentioned, and indeed very unlike any thing that is elsewhere known by the name of stratification. For example, the stratification must be very ambiguous, and very obscurely marked, that was not discovered till after a series of observations, continued for more than twenty years, by a very skilful and distinguishing mineralogist. Yet such undoubtedly is the stratification of Mont Blanc, and of the granite mountains in its neighbourhood, as it escaped the eyes of Saussure, in the repeated visits which he made to them, during a period of no less extent than has just been mentioned. It was not till near the conclusion of those labours, to which the geologists of every age will consider themselves as highly indebted, that, having reached the summit of Mont Blanc, he perceived, or thought that he perceived, the stratification of the granite mountains. The _Aiguilles_ or Needles which border the valley of Chamouni, and even Mont Blanc itself, appeared to be formed of vast tabular masses of granite, in position nearly vertical, and so exactly parallel, that he did not hesitate to call them by the name of strata. Till this moment, these same mountains, viewed from a lower point, had been regarded by him as composed of great plates of rock, nearly vertical indeed, but applied, as it were, round an axis, and resembling the leaves of an artichoke;[151] and the fissures by which they are separated from one another, had been considered as effects of waste and degradation. "But now," (says he, speaking of the view from the top of Mont Blanc,) "I was fully convinced, that these mountains are entirely composed of vast plates of granite, perpendicular to the horizon, and directed from N.E. to S.W. Three of these plates, separated from each other, formed the top of the _Aiguille du Midi_, and other similar plates, decreasing gradually in height, compose its declivity to the south."[152] [Footnote 151: Voyages aux Alpes, tom. ii. § 910, &c.] [Footnote 152: Voyages aux Alpes, tom. iv. § 1996.]