Formation of' European Tertiary Basins. 343 



abound in the upper tertiary sand and limestone. We may 

 add, that M. Brongniart is wrong in not admitting nummulites 

 in molasse (p. 148), for some have been found in that rock in 

 Gallicia, and also in Hungary. 



Lastly, we may notice the manner in which M. Brongniart 

 conceives the tertiary basins were successively filled. No one, 

 as far as we know, maintained that these basins were Caspian 

 or inland seas ; and, in general, M, Brongniart's ideas on this 

 subject have been adopted (201). These basins communicated 

 with the ocean, or they were only great gulfs, which received 

 various deposits, according to their locality and geographical 

 distribution. According to this view, a basin may be called a 

 Mediterranean basin, if it communicates with the ocean by a 

 narrow channel, and a gulf would be exemplified by that of 

 Gascony. Now if, during the tertiary period, the Mediterranean 

 communicated with the ocean through the south of France, and 

 with the Baltic Sea by the Black Sea and Russia, these pecu* 

 liarities will not hinder us from saying, that the Mediterranean 

 deposits took place in a nearly enclosed basin, while the tertiary 

 rocks of Bordeaux would have been deposited in a great gulf. 

 On the other hand, there were in Europe during the tertiary 

 period some other basins, with still smaller outlets than the 

 Mediterranean ; for instance, that basin which extended from 

 Grenoble or Chambery through Switzerland and Bavaria to the 

 extremity of Hungary. It is evident that this great basin could 

 not have had any outlets (supposing things as they are at pre- 

 sent) unless by Grenoble, through the rent of the Fort L'Ecluse, 

 by that of Bingen near to Mayence, and that between Sanchova 

 and Orschova in the Bannat. If it seems probable that two 

 or three of these outlets were formed during the alluvial period, 

 we at once perceive that there would have been then a nearly 

 inland sea. The Bohemian basin appears also to have had, 

 during a long tertiary period, only one outlet, and that towards 

 the North Sea ; or it was, in fact, during that period a true in- 

 land sea, and hence the tertiary deposit it contains is merely a 

 lignite clay without marine shells. It is even possible that, like 

 the Allier and the Loire basins, it may have been during the 

 tertiary period not only an isolated basin, but one on a higher 

 level than others. , , . . 



