STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 467 



ceeded by thick masses of dolomite. These were at that time 

 termed "Fassa Dolomite" from the Fassa or Avisio Valley, the 

 leading valley of the district. 



Buch had explained the dolomitic character of the " Fassa 

 Mountains " as the result of alteration associated with the local 

 volcanic action, but Wissmann regarded the "Fassa Dolomite" 

 as a normal marine deposit. With regard lo the marly 

 St. Cassian strata characterised by the richly diversified 

 small-sized fauna, Wissmann could not find out what were 

 the relations of this group either to the Fassa Dolomite or 

 to the marls and shales of two other fossiliferous localities 

 near St. Cassian, namely, the village of Wengen, and the hill- 

 slopes on which the pilgrimage chapel of " Heilig-Kreuz " had 

 been built. 



In 1843, Klipstein published a geological and palaeonto- 

 logical account of the same districts. His observations 

 in Abtey and Fassa valleys had been taken in unusual 

 detail, but led to no satisfactory explanation of the tectonic 

 relations of the district. Klipstein, who made personal collec- 

 tions to a certain extent and also bought largely from the village 

 fossil-collectors, was enabled to add more than three hundred 

 new species to the known fauna of St. Cassian. The investi- 

 gation of these was unfortunately in no measure comparable 

 with Minister's work, and the fallacious identification of a 

 Cephalopod as Ammonites cordatus led Klipstein to place* 

 the \Vengen shales in the Liassic formation, and as the 

 Wengen shales pass upward into St. Cassian marls, he con- 

 cluded the latter were of Jurassic age. Bronn, in a review of 

 Klipstein's work, in 1845, expressed grave doubts about the 

 Liassic and Jurassic age of the Wengen-Cassian series, and 

 stated that in his opinion these shales and marls were possibly 

 members of the Triassic formation which had remained hitherto 

 quite unknown, and for which no comparison could be found 

 in the German Trias, or they represented an aberrant " facies " 

 of the Muschelkalk, 



In 1844, Emmrich contributed a short communication to 

 the Neues Jahrbuch on "The Stratigraphical Succession of 

 the Flotz Series in the Gader Valley, at the Seis Alp, and 

 St. Cassian." This work created a new era in the study of 

 these deposits and takes its rank as one of. the classic contri- 

 butions to Alpine geology. In the course of a short visit to 

 South Tyrol, Emmrich prepared geological sections from the 



