230 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



IDENTITY OF THE NUMMULITIC FORMATION WITH THE EOCENE 



TERTIARY. 



SIR. R. I. MURCHISON, in a paper read before the Royal Geological 

 Society of England, " On the Transitions between the Secondary 

 and Tertiary Formations," shows that the vast formations of nurmnu- 

 litlc limestone, which have generally been merged into the cretaceous 

 strata, belong in reality to the eocene tertiary. This testimony of or- 

 ganic remains had previously referred these rocks to their true posi- 

 tion, but it is only within a recent period that Mr. Murchison has been 

 enabled to prove, from patient geological researches, that the nummu- 

 litic formation, when free from obscurities and unbroken, is in its su- 

 perposition in harmony with the distribution of animal remains. The 

 union of the nummulitic and cretaceous groups in one system has been 

 almost exclusively based on the phenomena of both having undergone 

 the same movements, and having been often elevated into the same 

 peaks and ridges. This formation, says Mr. Murchison, extends 

 through the whole of Southern Europe, the Crimea, Africa, Egypt, 

 and Hindostan, or, in other words, from the Carpathians to the 

 mouth of the Indus, a space of not less than 25 degrees of latitude 

 has been occupied by sea-basins, in which the creatures of this era 

 lived. In accordance with these views, a great change must be made 

 in geological maps and in the classification of these rocks in Southern 

 Europe and other parts of the world. 



GEOLOGY OF CHARLESTON, S. C. 



FROM an article communicated to the March number of Sillimari's 

 Journal, by Prof. F. S. Holmes, entitled, " Notes on the Geology of 

 Charleston," the following facts have been obtained : That Charles- 

 ton, the capital of South Carolina, is built upon Geological formations 

 identical in age with, and in other respects similar to, those upon which 

 the great cities of London and Paris are located, is a curious fact but 

 lately ascertained. The basin-shaped depression of its underlying 

 calcareous and other beds, as determined in the survey just made by 

 Prof. Tuomey, occupies a considerable extent between the Savannah 

 and Pedee Rivers, and rests upon an older group of rocks known to 

 geologists as the cretaceous formation. The sides of this basin are 

 estimated to be of sufficient inclination to produce those artificial 

 fountains w T hich are produced by boring, and known as " Artesian 

 Wells," through which, by hydrostatic pressure, the water is forced 

 up to, if not above the surface. This basin seems destined to become 

 as famous in the eyes of the scientific world as that of Paris, from 

 the number of new and interesting fossil remains with which it 

 abounds, while those of them already exhumed claim for it a rank 

 above that of the London basin. The explorations already made have 

 brought to light portions of the bones and the grinders of the masto- 

 don and numerous testacea. Descending below the post-pliocene for- 

 mation, where these are found, is the eocene or lower tertiary, the 

 first stratum being an olive-colored peaty substance, resting upon 



