334 THE GEOLOGY OF THE ALPS. [XIV. 



Both Lory and Fillet now admit with Favre that the sup- 

 posed paleontological anomalies of this region have no exist- 

 ence, and that this anthracitic system includes carboniferous, 

 Jurassic, and nummulitic strata inverted and folded upon them- 

 selves ; nor is it without reason that Lory in this connection 

 remarks upon " the illusions without number to which a purely 

 stratigraphical study of the Alps may give rise." To this we 

 may add the judgment of Dumont, in discussing the disturbed 

 and inverted anthracite system of the Ardennes, that for regions 

 thus affected " we cannot establish the relative age of the rocks 

 from their inclination or their superposition." 



These conclusions were not, however, admitted by Sismonda, 

 who, in 1866, presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Turin an elaborate memoir on the anthracite system of the 

 Alps.* In this, while admitting at Petit-Cceur the existence 

 of evidence of more or less contortion, rupture, and overriding 

 (enchevauchement) of the strata, he still maintains that the an- 

 thracitic system of Maurienne and Tarentaise is one great con- 

 tinuous series of Jurassic age, from the fundamental gneiss and 

 protogine, upon which it immediately rests, to the upper mem- 

 ber in which occur thick beds of anthracite, with an abundant 

 carboniferous flora, which he assigns, however, to the middle 

 oolite (Oxfordian) ; the great mass of strata below being re- 

 ferred to -the lias. He then particularly indicated the line of 

 the great Mont Cenis tunnel, which, commencing in the upper 

 anthracitic member, should pass downward through the quartz- 

 ites and gypsums, thence through talcose schists and limestones, 

 as far as Bardouecchia. These schists and limestones, accord- 

 ing to him, are in " a very advanced stage of metamorphism," 

 and include eruptive serpentines, with euphotide, steatite, and 

 other magnesian rocks. 



Since the completion of the tunnel, Messrs. Sismonda and 

 Elie de Beaumont have presented to the Academy of Sciences 

 of Paris an extended report on the geological results obtained 

 in this great work. It is accompanied by a description of 134 

 specimens of the rocks collected at intervals throughout the eu- 

 Memoirs of the Acad., Second Series, XXIV 333. 



