Geological Structure of the Asturias. 35 



limestones of the south which represent the chalk of the north 

 of Europe. Above the zone of Orbitolites, is a yellowish lime- 

 stone with Spatangi, which representing the upper chalk of the 

 north, is widely developed at Santander, between the town and 

 the lighthouse. 



The nummulite limestone then follows as the next deposit 

 in ascending order, and is overlaid, as in the Alps, by sand- 

 stone, &c. In this formation M. de Verneuil discovered, in 

 addition to Nummulites, the Serpula spirulaa, Conoclypus co- 

 noideuSi Ostrea crassissima or gigantea^ fossils so well known 

 in the nummulite rocks of the Alps, Vicentine and Crimaea. 

 This eocene group, whose fossils are so distinct from those of 

 the cretaceous system, nevertheless follows all the flexures and 

 dislocations of the latter, just in the manner recently described 

 by Sir Roderick Murchison in the Alps and Apennines. The 

 same relations, zoological and stratigraphical, are said (on the 

 authority of Don Amalio Maestre the Inspector of Mines of 

 the Asturias) to extend from Aragon towards Valencia. 



In describing the principal features of the carboniferous 

 rocks of the Asturias (some of the peaks of whose limestones 

 rise to upwards of 8000 feet above the sea), M. de Verneuil 

 shows, that the chief seams of coal are fairly intercalated with 

 courses of limestone and schists charged with the well-known 

 British species Productus antiquatus, P. punctatus and various 

 marine fossils. In this and in other overlying stages with 

 conglomerates, &c. containing coal, there is, the author ob- 

 serves, no sandstone or schist which can have served as a 

 soil on which jungle or marsh plants can have grown ; and 

 seeing the alternation of the fossil vegetables with marine de- 

 posits, he concludes that these coal-fields, like many others, 

 and particularly those of the Donetz in Russia described by 

 Sir R. Murchison and himself, were formed in estuaries of the 

 sea by the transport and subaqueous deposit of terrestrial 

 spoils, and are not referable to the same origin as certain car- 

 boniferous strata of the British Isles, America, &c., the coal beds 

 of which are supposed to have been formed of vegetable masses 

 in situ. In the second stage of this carboniferous formation, 

 M. de Verneuil discovered, that courses of calcareous schists 

 were loaded with Fusulinas — a poiot of very great interest; 

 since these foraminifera have been described in the mountain 

 limestone of Southern Russia*, and were subsequently dis- 

 covered by M. de Verneuil in the carboniferous limestone of 

 the United States of America. Their occurrence at this in- 

 termediate station in Spain is therefore highly interesting in 

 extending our acquaintance with the uniformity of distribution 

 * See Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains, vol. i. 

 D2 



