164} Dr Boiie on the Origin of Tertiary Rocks. 



The Calcaire grossiere or Paris Coarse Marine Limestone and GtfP" 

 sum are Marine Deposits, 

 The Parisian coarse marine limestone seems to be con- 

 fined in Europe to the Paris basin, to the foot of the South- 

 ern Alps, and perhaps to some extremely limited localities in 

 Northern Germany, as Eversen and Lemgo. The limestone 

 which has been compared with it in other parts of Germany, 

 covers a lignite deposit, which circumstance, according to M, 

 Brongniart's own views, places it higher in the series. As far 

 as I have seen and read, it appears that the Paris limestone, 

 said by Brongniart to extend from the western part of France 

 towards the eastern extremity of Europe (p. 185.), belongs to 

 the upper tertiary soil. We think that he himself already ac- 

 knowledges his mistake in the localities mentioned for Britanny, 

 La Vendee, Montpellier, Bavaria, Austria and Hungary (p, 

 190). Those geologists who have visited and described the 

 three last mentioned countries, have lately acknowledged that 

 there they could find only subapennine deposits, so that pro- 

 bably M. Brongniart will give his assent to this statement. We 

 do not know any thing which can induce us with Brongniart 

 (p. 190.), to place as parallel with the Paris limestone the red 

 molasse of Switzerland. That deposit is a mass of indurated 

 greyish or reddish coloured marls, without fossil organic re- 

 mains, with a few beds of sandstone impregnated with mineral 

 pitch, and covered in an unconformable and overlying position 

 by the molasse, with lignite, selenite, and fresh-water shells, as 

 at Nant de Verni, near Geneva. These marls, according to the 

 observations of Necker, pass under the fucoidal alpine sandstone 

 of the Voirons, at the same time that they cover the greensand 

 rocks of the Perte du Rhone. As we believe we found in the 

 Carpathians a system of similar beds in the recent secondary 

 arenaceous soil, we are disposed to look upon this as a dependent 

 of the fucoidal secondary sandstone, until other observations of 

 M. Brongniart shall prove the contrary. 



If M. Brongniart has extended too widely the geographical 

 distribution of the Paris limestone, he seems also to have fallen 

 into a similar mistake in regard to other deposits, when he says 

 that " Les quatre alternatives de terrain tritonien, paleotherien, 

 proteique, et epilymnique, peuvent se suivre depuis le basin de 



