On the former Changes of the Alps. 33 



entirely new creation had succeeded to universal decay and 

 death." 



In speaking of the Alpine equivalents of the British Lias 

 and Oolites, Sir Roderick paid a deep-felt tribute to Dr Buck- 

 land, who thirty years ago had led the way in recognizing this 

 parallel ; and Leopold von Buch was particularly alluded to 

 as having established these and other comparisons, and as 

 having shewn the extent to which large portions of these 

 mountains have been metamorphosed from an earthy into a 

 crystalline state. In treating of the cretaceous system it 

 was shewn that the Lower Green Sand of England, so well 

 and so long ago illustrated by Dr Fitton, was represented in 

 the Alps by large masses of limestone, since called Neoco- 

 mian by foreign geologists. 



Emphasis was laid upon the remarkable phenomena, that 

 every where in the south of Europe (as in the Alps) the 

 Nummulite rocks, with the " flysch" of the Swiss, and the 

 " macigno" of the Italians, have been raised up into mountains 

 together with the Hippurite and Inocerami rocks, or the 

 chalk on which they rest ; and hence it was, that before Sir 

 Roderick made his last survey of the Alps, the greater number 

 of geologists classed the Nummulite rocks with the cretace- 

 ous system, and considered them both to be of mediaeval or 

 secondary age. But judging from the fossils, which differ 

 entirely from those of the chalk (except at the beds of junction) 

 and also from their super-position, he had referred these 

 Nummulite rocks to the true lower tertiary or Eocene of 

 Lyell. Beds of this age, though once merely dark-coloured 

 mud, have been converted into the hard slates of Glarus with 

 their fossil fishes (among which eels and herrings first made 

 their appearance) ; other strata of this date contain the well 

 known fishes of Monte Bolca ; and others again have been 

 rendered so crystalline amid the peaks of the Alps as to re- 

 semble primary rocks, so intense have been the metamor- 

 phoses ! 



Dwelling for a few minutes on the atmospheric conditions 

 which prevailed after the elevation of the older tertiary, Sir 

 Roderick inferred that a Mediterranean and genial climate 

 prevailed during all the long period whilst the beds of sand 



VOL. LI. NO. CL — JULY 1851. C 



