2 Rev. W. D. Conybeare on a Geological Map of [Jan. 



hoped, with Charpentier's long-promised description of the 

 Pyrenees. It is also understood that an individual in this coun- 

 try, eminently qualified for the task, has, for a considerable time, 

 been employed in collecting together all the scattered sources of 

 information, with a view to incorporate them in a general map of 

 Europe. 



In this advanced state of the science, a general coup d'atil of 

 the ground which has been already gained seems desirable, and 

 in this view I have thrown together the following brief notices, 

 embodying their contents in the accompanying map (PI. XIX), 

 in which, neglecting the detail (an object precluded both by the 

 scale adopted, and by the yet incomplete state of the requisite 

 observations), it is attempted alone to indicate the general dis- 

 tribution of the principal classes of European formations, and 

 nothing further than approximation is professed. I shall be 

 fully contented if this sketch may be considered as an humble 

 but useful subsidiary to the more extended plans of which 1 

 have spoken ; as an index map, it may, I hope, accomplish this 

 purpose, for which its small scale particularly qualifies it, allow- 

 ing the information it contains to be comprehended at a single 

 glance ; while those general relations which are the great 

 objects of true science, and which are often almost lost amidst 

 the complications of detail, are brought more prominently for- 

 ward, and more readily seized under these circumstances. 



The map on which these observations are laid down is copied 

 as to its groundwork from a similar map in Ebel's work on the 

 Alps, although the great advances in geology have required 

 an almost total change in the colouring of the secondary coun- 

 tries, and many corrections in that of the older chains, so that in 

 its present state, it may be considered as almost an original 

 document. It will be found to include all those parts of Europe 

 which are most important to the present object; since the 

 southern extremities omitted (Spain, for instance), are generally 

 as yet too imperfectly known to have admitted even an approxi- 

 mate representation ; while the Scandinavian chains of the north 

 (including almost the whole country north of the Baltic, as far 

 as the gulf of Finland), presenting only primitive and transition 

 rocks, are too uniform to require any. 



The general distinctions which alone are attempted in this 

 map reduce themselves to the following : 1 . The more ancient 

 rocks, including the primitive and transition classes. 2. The 

 carboniferous series, including the old red sandstone, mountain 

 limestone, and coal measures. 3. The new sandstone and mag- 



C. Keferstein, the " Teut-schland geognostich geologisch dargestcllt." This contains 

 excellent introductory memoirs on the geology of Germany and the neighbouring coun- 

 tries ; and it has greatly gratified me to find the plan of these memoirs nearly coincident 

 with that adopted in the present paper. Maps and sections of Germany, I5avaria, 

 Swisserland, and the Tyrol, have already appeared in this work ; and I regard myself 

 as fortunate in having been enabled to avail myself of these new materials in the accom- 

 panying map. 



