Dr Boue's Geological Observations. Wt 



out sufficient examination, they have united under the names of 

 ancient and recent transition class, an immense quantity of beds, 

 containing numerous alternations of sandstone and limestone 

 rocks ; and have, on the other hand, subdivided, to a great 

 degree, much smaller masses of deposits, because they abounded 

 more in fossil shells, or were more easily studied. I ask, if 

 there really exist in the floetz period, more than two great essen- 

 tial and universal formations ; of which the one would be emi- 

 nently calcareous, and would contain the chalk and the Jura 

 limestone, and the other generally arenaceous, and containing 

 all the older floetz sandstones posterior to the Jura limestone ? 



I confess I am inclined to this arrangement. I see in the 

 floetz formations the arenaceous deposits decreasing from below 

 upwards, and the limestone from above downwards, I find be- 

 tween the chalk and the Jura limestone, or even in this latter 

 (England, Dalmatia, France), nothing else than very small are- 

 naceous masses, which even do not occur generally. On the 

 other hand, in the older arenaceous deposits, I see only acci- 

 dentally two limestone masses, of which the lowest is nowhere very 

 thick, and of very partial distribution, and of which the other also 

 does not seem to have the general extent of the Jura limestone. 

 Lastly, this latter limestone shows, how extensive one's observa- 

 tions must have been, before we could decide whether a particu- 

 lar deposit is universal, or entitled to rank as a formation ; for 

 the different divisions recognised here and there in that lime- 

 stone, do not exist every where ; some of these divisions are 

 sometimes represented by very different rocks, and even that 

 which seems the most important, the lias, is wanting in the 

 whole of the south-eastern part of Europe, as in the Appenines, 

 the Alps, Austria, and Hungary. 



Whatever other opinions may yet be formed on the subjects 

 in question, these are the ideas which seem to have been em- 

 braced by many eminent geologists, who are accustomed to con- 

 sult nature with the hammer in their hand, and not through the 

 medium of books. I may also remark, that, so early as 1816, 

 Professor Jameson was not far from these ideas, with which 

 every known fact in geological geography is in accordance. 

 Nevertheless, I beheve it of importance to retain all the existing 

 subdivisions, and even to endeavour to establish still more, in 



