Talc laminae lie
scattered here and there in the newly-formed rock, traversed by masses of
serpentine. In the valley of the Fassa, dolomite rises perpendicularly in
smooth walls of dazzling whiteness to a height of many thousand feet. It
forms sharply-pointed conical mountains, clustered together in large
numbers, but yet not in contact with each other. The contour of their forms
recalls to mind the beautiful landscape with which the rich imagination of
Leonardi da Vinci has embellished the back-ground of the portrait of Mona
Lisa.
The geognostic phenomena which we are now describing, and which excite the
imagination as well as the powers of the intellect, are the result of the
action of augite porphyry manifested in its elevating, destroying, and
transforming force.*
[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Geognostische Briefe an Alex. von Humboldt',
1824, s. 86 and 82; also in the 'Annalen de Chemie', t. xxiii., p. 276, and
in the 'Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus der Jahren 1822 'und' 1823, s.
83-136; Von Dechen, 'Geognosie.' s. 574-576.
The process by which limestone is converted into dolomite is not regarded by
the illustrious investigator who first drew attention to the phenomenon as
the consequence of the tale being derived from the black porphyry, but
rather as a transformatiion simultaneous with the appearance of this erupted
stone through wide fissures filled with vapors.
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