Geology of the Austrian Al^fS. 21 



Lower Austria, for they are not all in newer alpine limestone, 

 as has been shewn long since in the writings of Stutz, Riepel, 

 Constant Prevost, and our own papers, where it is made plain 

 that these coal beds are in the inferior part of an arenaceous de- 

 posite, superior to that limestone, viz. in the Vienna sandstone, 

 which they indeed mention shortly as a deposite, separating the 

 newer alpine limestone from the tertiary rocks. Notwithstand- 

 ing they acknowledge, in that sandstone, all the paleological 

 characters of the secondary period, they do not inform us of the 

 position which that sandstone occupies in relation to the hip^ 

 purite and nummulite rocks ; they rest satisfied in placing it 

 above the newer alpine limestone. Besides, they annex to that 

 sandstone, rocks belonging to the greensand, as, for example, 

 the locality of Sonthhofen ; but they do not venture to pronounce 

 that greensand includes our Vienna sandstone. Still further, 

 in speaking of the Kressenberg sandstone, which they believe to 

 be tertiary, they describe Mount Kaschelstein, which is com- 

 posed of Vienna sandstone, with ammonites and belemnites; 

 and they separate carefully, by afmdt, this deposite from that 

 of the Kressenberg. Indeed, this is also our opinion; and 

 they tacitly adopt it, by placing the Vienna sandstone between 

 the superior alpine limestone and the greensand. Why, then, 

 do they not mark the Kaschelstein in their section. Fig. 2 ? 



The section on the Tertiary for mations is that which most 

 concerns me. They reproach me for not understanding their 

 classification of Sonthhofen, a locality which they could not pos- 

 sibly place in the tertiary class^ but in the secondary. We ac- 

 knowledge our error here, but do not understand how they can 

 separate the Kressenberg from it, which they describe as identi- 

 cal in a mineralogical point of view. The fossils alone remain their 

 guide in this violent separation. Of 172 species of fossils of the 

 Kressenberg, 42 have been considered tertiary by Count Munster, 

 and no miner, they say, ever saw secondary fossils in this locality. 

 This is their sole argument. We would first beg the Count to 

 determine all the fossils of Sonthhofen, and then we would 

 see if these Crustacea (craw-fishes), belemnites, ammonites, are 

 not associated with or covered by an aggregate of shells, partly 

 of species still considered as tertiary. Until that be done, an 

 important part for the solution of the problem by its fossils alone 



