208 Sir R. I. Murchison on the Geological Structure 



self*, and to extend the sun'ey from that jDortion of the chain to 

 Switzerland and Savo)'. The second part is a brief explanation of 

 his present views respecting the northern flank of the Carpathian 

 mountains, and the third relates to Italy and the Apennines. 



The Alps. — The central masses of the Eastern Alps, though in 

 parts highly crystalline, contain recognizable remnants of Upper Si- 

 lurian, Devonian, and carboniferous deposits, as proved by organic 

 remains; but no traces of the Permian system f of the author, so 

 abundant in Russia, Germany and England, have been found in 

 them or in any part of Southern Europe. In the same regions, viz. 

 in the South Tyrol and the Salzburg Alps, the above-mentioned palae- 

 ozoic formations are succeeded by trias, vi'ith true " muschelkalk " 

 fossils, as recently expounded by Von Buch, Emmerich, Von Hauer, 

 and other geologists. But in following the central parts of the chain 

 from Austria into Switzerland and Savoy, all fossil evidences of these 

 paleozoic and triassic deposits cease ; which, if ever they existed, 

 have been obliterated by the very powerful action of metamorphism 

 ■which has affected the Western Alps, llie presence, however, of 

 undoubted species of old coal plants in Savoy has led some geolo- 

 gists to believe that the carboniferous system had some representa- 

 tive there ; whilst M. E. de Beaumont and M. Sismonda contend, 

 that the association of such plants with belemnites proves that they 

 occur in the lias of this part of the chain (Mont Blanc, Taren- 

 taise, and Maurienne), so clearly recognized by its numerous animal 

 organic remains. Sir R. Murchison allows, after personal inspection, 

 that in the much-disputed locality of Petit Coeur, the coal-plants 

 and anthracite really appear to lie in the same formation with the 

 belemnites as described by M. E. de Beaumont. 



After a notice of the better acquaintance of geologists at this day 

 with the fossils of the secondary rocks of the Alps than when Prof. 

 Sedgwick and himself described them, and after showing the great 

 value of the Oxfordian group of Von Buch as the clear uppermost zone 

 of the Jurassic limestones, the author goes to his chief point, and 

 proves by a number of natural sections, that the opinion for which his 

 colleague and himself formerly contended, and which met with so 

 much opposition, is at length completely established ; — that the flanks 

 of the Alps exhibit a true transition from the younger secondary into the 

 older tertiary strata. But whilst this principle was correct, the author 

 allows that his friend and himself were in error in applying it to the 

 Gosau deposits ; all the lower and fossiliferous parts of which he now 



• Trans. Geo). Soc. Lond. N. Ser. vol. iii. p. 301, and Phil. Mag. N.S. 

 vol. viii. Aug. 1830. 



f The term " Permian," derived from the vast region of Russia, where 

 this uppermost Palaeozoic system is more largely developed than in any 

 part of the world hitherto examined (see Russia in Europe and the Ural 

 Mountains), embraces in its meaning the Rothe Todt-liegende, Kupfer 

 Schiefer and Zechstein of the German geologists, and among the latter. 

 Professor Naumann, Dr. Geinitz and Capt. Gutbier have recently adopted 

 the new term. In England the term includes the Lower Red sandstone, 

 and the magnesian limestone. As far as researches have gone, it would 

 appear that the Permian system is omitted in Southern Europe. 



