Dr Boue's Comparative View of the Secondary Rocks. 177 



The inferior limestone chains contain fishes, and particular 

 fucoides, (Seefeld) ; the superior limestmie contains terebratu- 

 htes, nautilites, echinites, belemnites, singular bodies like hippur- 

 ites, ammonites, &c. ; and the dolomitic and oolitic character is 

 more frequent in the superior chain than in the other. All these 

 five sub-divisions are united together by alternations at their line 

 of junction, as is well exemplified in the section from Werfen to 

 Reichenhall in Salzburg. 



Parts of the red slate and sandstone formation, below the Al- 

 pine limestone, re-appear on the northern side of the inferior 

 chain, as at St Agatha, on the lake of Hallstadt, in the Abtenau, 

 where it contains ophite or diorite masses, with much gypsum, 

 as in the Pyrenees. The age of this singular red sandstone de- 

 posite we shall not now attempt to fix ; for, although it has many 

 of the characters of the old red sandstone, yet many things are 

 against this classification. 



The Alpine limestone is probably Jurassic, and we may be 

 able, by means of my extensive collection of fossils, to recoonise 

 in it even those sub-divisions called great Oolite, Corn-brash, 

 Coral-rag, Oxford Clay, &c. Upon this Alpine hmestone there 

 is superimposed, partly in conformable, partly in an unconform- 

 able position, a most diversified deposite, which is to be observed 

 near the Wand in Lower Austria, at Lunz, Hinter Laussa, 

 Gams, Hieflau, Windish Gersten, on the lake of Gmund, in the 

 basin-like valley of Gossau, in the valley of Abtenau, upon the 

 northern part of the Untersberg near Reichenhall, and at Samt- 

 joch, to the north of Unter Schwatz in the Tyrol. Geological 

 maps, sections, and descriptions, will fully prove this fact. 

 Here, for the present, we shall rest satisfied, by mentioning 

 that the conglomerate, which often forms the base of this iormi- 

 tion, is seen lying upon the limestone in all the upper parts of 

 the valleys to the north of Gossau, Geschitt, and Buchberg, and 

 Hillau ; other parts of the deposite lie unconformably upon Al- 

 pine limestone in the Brill valley, near Gossau in Hinter Laussa, 

 or come only in contact with great walls of Alpine limestone, as 

 at Hennerkogl, an alpine region near the lake of Gossau. This 

 formation is composed of conglomerate, marly sandstone, with 

 inipre.ssions of leaves or culmites, marls, clays, and beds of hip- 

 punte and nunnnulite limestone; these latter, along with the 



OCTOHKR nE( K.MIJKU 182<). M 



