Sir R. I. Murchison's Notes on the Alps and Apennines. 287 



devoid of fossils ; and the series between that horizon and 

 the deposits of miocene age, with the exception of certain 

 flaggy limestones (Alberese), assumes an arenaceous type. 

 At very rare intervals only, and chiefly to the south of Flo- 

 rence, are any bands of nummulites observable ; but where 

 they occur, the author refers all the " macigno" sandstone 

 which is associated with them, to the eocene epoch ; such 

 rocks being perfectly undistinguishable from the " macigno 

 Alpin," or flysch of the Alps. As, however, these rocks re- 

 pose upon others, including vast thicknesses of the Alberese 

 limestone, so largely seen in the Apennines between Bologna 

 and Florence, and in the northern part of the Tuscan Ma- 

 remma, it is presumed that much of the latter mai/ represent 

 the chalk. For, although these rocks coi\ta>m fucoids, one or 

 more of them being said to be similar in species to those 

 which overlie the nummulite strata of the Alps, no sort of 

 reliance can be placed on the presence of such marine ve- 

 getables, which, in the Alps, range from the lower chalk high 

 into the eocene. On the other hand, in Tuscany, an ammo- 

 nite and a hamite have actually been found in these infra- 

 nummulitic masses ; and hence the inference of the author is, 

 that Professor Savi, though correct in viewing a portion of 

 this series as cretaceous, has erred in including in it the 

 nummulitic rocks. 



In paying a just tribute to the talents, labours, and cha- 

 racter of the lamented Professor Pilla, the author avows the 

 impossibility of admitting his term of *' Systema Etruriano' 

 as an equivalent for any true geological division, as in it 

 are comprehended strata which that writer had admitted to 

 be cretaceous, with others which it is the chief object of this 

 memoir to establish as lower tertiary. 



In passing into the Papal States and Naples, the superpo- 

 sition of the nummulitic limestones, with their usually as- 

 sociated fossils, to hippuritic limestones, the equivalents of 

 the chalk, is seen to be resumed ; and thus the same gene- 

 ral succession as in the Alps and Carpathians is maintained. 

 Cases illustrative of this order, with much overlying macigno, 

 are pointed out in the Sabine Hills and in the kingdom of 

 Naples. 



