MESOZOIC AND KAINOZOIC GEOLOGY IN EUROPE. 321 



from a geological point of view England really serves as a 

 table of contents to the greater part of the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere, and it does, better than any other country, afford a 

 general idea of geology as a whole. But, however admir- 

 able a table of contents may be, the study of that table can 

 scarcely replace the study of the whole book. 



In these articles the treatment will be designed, as far 

 as possible, to bring out the mutual geological relations of 

 different areas ; and for this purpose the arrangement will 

 be according to the stratigraphical systems. But a section 

 will be devoted to papers of a general character, and this 

 section will include a certain number of local descriptions 

 which do not find a convenient place elsewhere. 



At the end of this article will be found a list of the more 

 important papers which have been published (or have been 

 received in England) since the beginning of last October, 

 and it is to these that the present notice refers. Where it 

 has been necessary to mention an earlier paper the reference 

 will generally be found in a footnote. 



GENERAL. 



Among the many debts which modern geology owes 

 primarily to Heim, and in Britain to Lapworth, one of 

 the greatest has been the recognition of the fact that 

 a whole mountain mass may be slid over the top of 

 other rocks for a distance of several miles. Since the 

 researches of Peach and Home 1 in the North-west High- 

 lands the sliding surface has been known as a thrust-plane ; 

 and it has been found that the existence of thrust-planes 

 removes many difficulties which had been felt in the inter- 

 pretation of other disturbed areas. 



In the neighbourhood of Toulon, for example, which 

 has recently been described by Ziircher (42), the relations 

 of the schists and crystalline rocks to the beds of later age 

 were incapable of explanation by means of simple inversions 

 and ordinary faults. Ziircher shows that if we suppose the 



1 Nature, xxxi. (1884), p. 29. Quart. Journ. Geo/. Soc. t xliv. (1888), 

 P- 378. 



22 



