360 



NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY 



whether both the Oolitic and the cretaceous groups do not exist 

 in those regions. There are calcareous breccias and conglom- 

 erates, also, (Nos. 35, 43, and 47,) frequently lying» above the 

 compact limestone, and made up entirely of fragments of cal- 

 careous rock, which seem, from their great hardness, to belong to 

 a formation older than the chalk. And, finally, Rev. Mr. Thom- 

 son, in his tour from Beyroot to Aleppo, describes Movant Cas- 

 sius, somewhat west of Antioch, in the northern part of Syria, 

 as abounding in primary rocks. Still further west, the marl had 

 disappeared, and vast masses of serpentine took its place. At 

 Mount Cassius, he describes serpentine, hornblende, and mica- 

 ceous rocks, and a deposit of granite two hundred feet thick, 

 resting on a talcose rock, that was found for miles uninterrupted- 

 ly. This, to be sure, is a rather an unusual position for gi-anite ; 

 but if it had been protruded through the talcose rock towards the 

 top of the mountains, it would have been easy to mistake the 

 mantling of the slate around the granite for an inferior position. 

 Above the granite, he says, there rested a deposit of hornblende 

 and mica. So that I doubt not the older "crystalline rocks occur 

 there. Again, No. 94 is limestone with talc from Beyroot ; precise- 

 ly such a rock as occurs in New England, in some of our oldest 

 deposits. If, then, the oldest rocks exist in the vicinity of Leba- 

 non, we may presume that the formations intermediate betAveen 

 these and the chalk will be found there, as in other parts of the 

 world*. 



If Botta is correct in placing the sandstones of Lebanon be- 

 neath the compact limestones, I acknowledge that the character 

 of these sandstones corresponds very well to the ferruginous sand- 

 stone formation of this country, regarded as belonging to the 

 cretaceous formation. They are, for the most part, highly ferru- 



* Janiiary 1, 1843. Through the kindness of Prof. C. U. Shepard, I have just seen 

 a rough section of the rocks, extending from Beyroot to Damascus, across Mount Leba- 

 non and Anti-Lebanon, constructed by Rev. Mr. L.anxeau, American Missionary at 

 Jerusalem. He represents three principal deposits through the whole distance ; namely, 

 conglomerate at the top ; beneath thi.s, chalky limestone ; and compact limestone the 

 lowest of all. Such a position of the latter corresponds with the suggestion in the text, 

 that it may belong to the Oolite group. He places the sandstones quite high upon the 

 mountains, above the compact limestone. 



