136 Remarks on the Level of the Molasse in the Eastern Alps. 
the liberty of calling your attention to the subject. You 
must surely possess most extensive soundings for the purpose 
of navigation. Believe me to be, dear Sir, your faithful and 
obedient servant. A. MORLOT. 
On the Level of the Molasse in the Eastern Alps. 
The younger tertiary formation (miocene), or molasse, forms 
the low hilly country surrounding the Alps; it shews very 
distinctly in Lower Styria, a system of equally elevated ridges, 
which, looked at from a distance, constitute a horizontal level, 
distinctly cut off by the transition rocks, which arise abruptly 
out of it to a much greater height. It is thus clear, that the 
molasse once formed a continuous plain, the subsequent fur- 
rowing of which produced the undulated country described. 
At first sight, one is tempted to consider this clearly-de- 
fined level as that of the ¢ertiary sea itself, in which it was 
formed, and which would then, in the neighbourhood of Graz, 
for example, have stood at about 500 feet above the Mur, or 
1500 feet above the present level of the sea. 
The interior of the Eastern Alps presents the same pheno- 
mena. We see there as well as in such wider depressions as 
Lower Carinthia, as also in the larger valleys, like that of 
the Mur and Miirz, of the Drava and Sava, more or less 
horizontal and continuous deposits of the miocene formation, 
but which reach here much higher than round the outskirts of 
the Alps, for they attain in Lower Carinthia, and in the wider 
parts of the chief valleys, as for example, at Tudenburg 
in Upper Styria, a level of 2500 feet above the sea, whilst 
they even rise in some more remote and gently ascending 
side-valleys to an extreme height of 3000 feet ; for example, 
at the Pass of Obdach, between Tudenburg and Wolfsberg, in 
Carinthia, the very top of which is miocene, and contains the 
brown coal and impressions of leaves characterizing the oldest 
strata of the system in the country. Another, and even more 
singular instance of the same kind is to be seen at Tarvis, 
when, after following the miocene deposits from Lower | 
Carniola all along up the valley of Sava, you arrive at the 
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