Jura Mountains

“ One gets an excellent chance, from the top, to compare the mountains of the Jura across the lake with the Alps. The Jura has been compared to a great, stiff curtain, without fringes or folds; even its colours are rather monotonous, its distant blue is a bit gloomy and tragic. It is curious, but this solemnity and monotony is said to affect the inhabitants. ”

“ This plain is called by soldiers 'the Gap of Belfort', and is the only break in the hill frontier that covers France all the way from the Mediterranean to Flanders. On the farther side of this plain ran the Jura mountains, which are like a northern wall to Switzerland, and just before you reach them is the Frontier. The Jura are fold on fold of high limestone ridges, thousands of feet high, all parallel, with deep valleys, thousands of feet deep, between them; and beyond their last abrupt escarpment is the wide plain of the river Aar. ”

“ Not only are they found upon level and loamy lands, utterly unaccountable except by the assumptions of transportation, but they are also discovered capping the cliffs of mountain chains, hanging by the side of depths, over which they must have been carried, and into which, by the Nemesis of destiny, they are now doomed to fall. The Jura Mountains, north of the great valley of Switzerland, and opposite the western or Bernese Alps, along the frontier of France, are thus studded with these bowlders, some of them containing 50,000 to 60,000 cubic feet of stone. ”

“ As we get near the falls, we are reaching one of the most romantic points of view in all the Jura, and one of the most striking I have ever seen, so imposingly do the mountains close around us as we enter the gorge, so lovely the scene shut in by the impenetrable natural wall ”

“ We passed rapidly along; the sun was hot, but we were sheltered from its rays by a kind of canopy while we enjoyed the beauty of the scene, sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw Mont Salêve, the pleasant banks of Montalègre, and at a distance, surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc, and the assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her; sometimes coasting the opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it. ”

“ As I stood there, panoramas from the Swiss mountains came up to my memory, and I fancied myself on the Alps, looking across the plain of Switzerland instead of the bed of the Amazons; the distant line of the Santarem hills on the southern bank of the river, and lower than the northern chain, representing the Jura range. As if to complete the comparison, Alpine lichens were growing among the cacti and palms, and a crust of Arctic cryptogamous growth covered rocks, between which sprang tropical flowers. ”

“ The valley through which I was now passing resembled that of the lovely river Jed where it runs down from the Cheviots, and leads like a road into the secret pastures of the lowlands. Here also, as there, steep cliffs of limestone bounded a very level dale, all green grass and plenty; the plateau above them was covered also with perpetual woods, only here, different from Scotland, the woods ran on and upwards till they became the slopes of high mountains; indeed, this winding cleft was a natural passage through the first ridge of the Jura ”

“ They are, in short, mountains of elevation, ridged up by tangential thrusts. Of this we need not have the slightest doubt. If, for example, we approach the Alps from the low-grounds of France, we observe the strata as we come towards the Jura beginning to undulate—the undulations becoming more and more marked, and passing into sharp folds and plications, until, in the Alps, the beds become twisted, convoluted, and bent back upon themselves in the wildest confusion. ”

“ All day long, therefore, the solemn silence of these mountains is broken by the noise of mill-wheels and rushing waters, and if it is the manufactories that feed the people, it is the rivers that feed the manufactories. The Jura, indeed, may be said to depend on its running streams and rivers for its wealth, each and all a Pactolus in its way, flowing over sands of gold. ”

“ These small folds become sharper and closer the nearer we get to the main chain, and evidently were formed by the same movements that uplifted the higher ranges beyond; but the force was not so great. Thus we find the great Alpine chain flanked to the north by the smaller ranges of the Jura Mountains; and on the south, side of the Himalayas we find similar smaller ranges of hills. ”

“ A glance at the geological structure of the Alps and the Jura shows us that these mountains are a typical example of such a chain; they are mountains of elevation. In the Jura the mountains form a series of long parallel ridges separated by intervening hollows; and the form or shape of the ground coincides in a striking manner with the foldings of the strata. In these mountains we see a succession of symmetrical flexures, the beds dipping in opposite directions at the same angle from the axis of each individual anticline. ”

“ On the outer flanks of these mountains the longitudinal ridges and valleys of the Jura correspond with lines of anticline and syncline. Yet though the dominant topographical elements of the region have obviously been produced by the plication of the stratified formations, each ridge has suffered so large an amount of erosion that the younger rocks have been removed from its crest where the older members of the series are now exposed to view, while on every slope proofs may be seen of extensive denudation. ”

“ If we proceed a little distance to the mountains of the Jura, now wholly devoid of Glaciers, we shall find that the same glacial phenomena with which we have become so familiar in the Alps, are still everywhere presented to the eye. ”

“ The sun was sinking undimmed; it was such a great prospect that a human eye cannot grasp it. The moon, almost full, arose and we also kept mounting. Through forest of fir-trees we climbed up toward the Jura and saw the lake in the vaporous atmosphere and the moon reflected in it. It grew brighter and brighter. The road is a well-constructed chaussée only built to facilitate the transportation of wood from the mountains down into the country. ”

“ Add to these the metamorphism, the faults, veins, dikes, and volcanic outbursts, and it is seen that all geological agencies concentrate there.”—Le Conte.
Since mountain-ranges are great up-swellings or bulgings of the strata, their structure is always essentially anticlinal; and they sometimes consist of a single more or less denuded anticline (Fig. 38) , the oldest and lowest strata exposed forming the summit of the range. More commonly, however, the single great arch or uplift is modified by a series of longitudinal folds, as shown in the section of the Jura Mountains (Fig. 21) . ”

“ And as the Jura, a part of the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains, display marks of such animal structures, it is a proof that all those mountain-ranges have, in the past ages, arisen from the ocean. They must have risen from a warm ocean, warmer than the climate of those regions is to-day, for the tropics only are the home of the reef-building coral-polyps. ”

“ Jura derived its name from the red deer which once abounded on it. Cattle and sheep are raised; oats, barley and potatoes are cultivated along the eastern shore, and there is some fishing. Granite is quarried and silicious sand, employed in glass-making is found. The parish of Jura comprises the islands of Balnahua, Fladda, Garvelloch, Jura, Lunga, Scarba and Skervuile.
JURA, a range which may be roughly described as the block of mountains rising between the Rhine and the Rhone, and forming the frontier between France and Switzerland. ”

“ It was from the Jura itself that one of the great epochs in the history of the globe received its name. It was in a deep gorge of the Jura, that, more than half a century ago, Leopold von Buch first perceived the mode of formation of mountains; and it was at the foot of the Jura, in the neighborhood of Neufchatel, that the investigations were made which first led to the recognition of the changes connected with the Periods. As I shall have occasion hereafter to enter into this subject more at length, I will only allude briefly here to the circumstances. ”

“ At present they divide the Gray and Vermilion Sandstones by so intricate a labyrinth of deep cañons that the whole area of the uplift is almost impassable. The monotony of red sandstone, for here all members of the Jura-Trias are brick-red, the variety of dip, complicated to the eye by oblique lamination, the multiplicity of cañons and ridges, conspire to give an impression of chaos from whatever point the tract is viewed ”

“ Jean, in the Jura, it appears that at this season young people still repair to the cross-roads and heights, and there wave burning torches so as to present the appearance of fiery wheels in the darkness.471 In Franche-Comté, the province of France which lies immediately to the west of the Jura mountains, the fires of St. ”

“ Rosehill. The English papers tell of wolves descending from the Jura and devouring the inhabitants of the villages, but we have been in happy ignorance of these editors' horrors.
Letter to the Brays, 15th Feb. 1850.
If you saw the Jura to-day! The snow reveals its forests, ravines, and precipices, and it stands in relief against a pure blue sky. The snow is on the mountains only, now, and one is tempted to walk all day, particularly when one lies in bed till ten, as your exemplary friend sometimes does. I have had no discipline, and shall return to you more of a spoiled child than ever. ”

“ The broadest plains are as a rule carved from the thickest beds of shale, and these are found at the top of the Jura-Trias and near the base of the Cretaceous. Where the streams from the mountains cross the Blue Gate, the Tununk, or the Flaming Gorge shale at a favorable angle, a plain is the result. ”

“ The majority of people see the Jura, either on their way to Switzerland, when they are too eager for the first glimpse of the snowy Alps beyond; or, returning from the glories of the higher Alps, when the Jura seems tame and uninteresting. Thus they catch little more than a most superficial glimpse of this region of romantic, wooded hills. The general impression from the train is a range of hills with lovely pine forests, much the same as any other pine woods, with here and there a few dashes of cliff or a rocky ravine to relieve the monotony. ”

“ The Jura is, indeed, a most romantic district, and one that fully repays a protracted stay. To those returning from a sojourn among the sky-scaling Alps it will certainly look dwarfed; but what is lost in size is more than made up for and gained in expression. The whole region in the summer time is one of Nature’s fairest smiles, under which lie hidden secret meanings and charms that only reveal themselves to the one who coaxes their revelation and knows the smallest variation of her hills and valleys. ”

“ The Jura range is composed of a peculiar kind of limestone abounding in caves, containing stalactital formations and the remains of extinct animals. The highest peak of the Jura rises to 8000 feet. Naturally it is divided into three regions, the plain, the mountain, and the vineyard. The climate, as in most mountainous countries, is rude, winter lasting eight months, on an average with enormous quantities of snow. More than a fourth of the territory is covered with forests, that of La Chaux being one of the finest in France. ”

“ It had been splendid weather for the last few days, after a cold August in Central France; and the first Jura walk was across the hill to the gorge of the Ain. I had often been through the Jura, as a blind, benighted modern, but never before loitered from slab to slab of its fissured limestone summits, looking for the foreground loveliness of nestling flowers which contrast so delicately with the quaint, crannied rock; there is nothing which gives the same lyrical feeling except some of Nature's gardens in wild Icelandic lava-fields. ”

“ The great mountain range, which, running from Basle to Geneva, divides Switzerland from France, is, as you are aware, named the Jura. Its principal heights run by Lausanne, and reach as far as Rolle and Nyon. In the midst of this summit ridge, Nature has cut out—I might almost say washed out—a remarkable valley; for on the tops of all these limestone rocks the operation of the primal waters is manifest. It is called La Vallée de Joux, which means the Valley of the Rock, since Joux, in the local dialect, signifies a rock. ”

“ We overlook the Tête du Lion, and nothing except the Dent d’Hérens, whose summit is still a thousand feet above us, stands in the way. The ranges of the Graian Alps—an ocean of mountains—are seen, at a glance, governed by their three great peaks, the Grivola, Grand Paradis, and Tour de St. Pierre. How soft, and yet how sharp, they look in the early morning! The mid-day mists have not begun to rise; nothing is obscured; even the pointed Viso, all but a hundred miles away, is perfectly defined.
Turn to the east, and watch the sun’s slanting rays coming across the Monte Rosa snow-fields. ”

“ The average height of the Jura is about one-third that of the Alps, and it is now entirely destitute of glaciers; yet it presents almost everywhere moraines, and polished and grooved surfaces of rocks. The erratics, moreover, which cover it present a phenomenon which has astonished and perplexed the geologist for more than half a century. ”