Tertiary Formation in the Province of Granada, 365 



groups; 1^^, or lowest group; 2d!, or superior group. (See sec- 

 tion 1. Plate II.) 



1. Lowest group : consists of a brownish yellow and dark 

 bluish-grey coloured tenacious clay. 



2. Superior group : consists of alternating horizontal beds of 

 sand, coarse sandstone, sandy loam, marl, and conglomerate. 



1. Lowest Group. — Contiguous to the northern higher part of 

 Malaga, and confined towaids the east and north by the moun- 

 tainous district which borders the Mediterranean, and towards 

 the west by the Rio Guadamedina, there is a small open tract, 

 in a portion of which, near the convent of La Vittoria, exten- 

 sive excavations for brick-earth have been made in the argillace- 

 ous deposit belonging to this group. The upper part of the 

 deposit consists of a light- coloured brownish-yellow argillace- 

 ous marl, from 12 to 16 feet thick, the lower portion of a dark- 

 ish bluish-grey coloured tenacious clay, which has been pene- 

 trated to the depth of 50 feet. There is an admixture of fine 

 sand throughout the deposit, in the lower part of which it is in 

 a small, but in the upper in a considerable quantity. A waving 

 irregular line, distinguishable from the different shades of colour 

 of the upper and lower part of the deposit, may be distinctly 

 followed by the eye ; but at other points near Malaga, where 

 this argillaceous group is seen, the upper portion is of variable 

 thickness, and sometimes entirely wanting, so that the subjacent 

 dark- coloured clayey mass is exposed at the surface. Irregular 

 veins of selenite, from two inches to half an inch thick, are occa- 

 sionally seen passing in straight or undulating lines through both 

 portions of the deposit, from the base to the top of the escarp- 

 ments formed by the workings. 



The most abundant and characteristic shell of this argillaceous 

 mass, is the Pecten Pleurenectes *, of various sizes of from three 

 inches to half an inch in diameter. One resembling P. corneus, 

 but longer, Dentalia natica, Triton nodiferum, identical with 



• Mr Deshayes, who did me the favour to examine some of the fossils from 

 this bed, identified Pecten pleurenectes, Dentalium sexangulare, Natica can- 

 rina, Natica llillwgrii-payr. ■ ' 



Mr Sowerby identified, amongst other specimens, Pecten cornus, varietas, 

 and Triton nodiferum. 



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