STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY 531 



of Switzerland, and other Miocene deposits. The Sub-Apen- 

 nine stage includes, in addition to the Pliocene marine for- 

 mations of Italy and the upper sands of Montpellier, a 

 mixture of young Tertiary and diluvial deposits. D'Orbigny's 

 classification is very unsatisfactory; it often throws together 

 strata of quite different ages, and assumes stratigraphical limits 

 for which there is no evidence. 



In addition to Touraine, Gascony, and Turin, another dis- 

 trict well known to the literature in connection with the 

 Miocene strata is the Vienna basin. The first scientific 

 observations of this area were contributed by Constant 

 Prevost (1820) and Ami Boue (1822). The latter relied 

 mainly on information given by Partsch and Hauer, who 

 had been an enthusiastic collector of fossils in the localities 

 near Vienna. In 1837, Bronn revised Hauer's collection, and 

 by his identification of the fossils proved that the fauna was 

 of Miocene age. In 1846, D'Orbigny published his excellent 

 monograph on the Foraminifera of the Vienna basin, and two 

 years later Reuss published an account of the fossil polyps. 



Many geologists examined local areas and contributed 

 sections and maps, but the first to give ,a clear exposition of 

 the stratigraphical relations of the whole Vienna basin was 

 Suess, in 1866, in a memoir entitled Untersuchungen iiber 

 den Charakter der osterr. Tertiarablagerungen. This memoir 

 described not only the Alpine "Vienna basin," but also the 

 deposits in the area between the Alps and the Manharts range. 

 Suess showed that the Eocene Nummulite formation is suc- 

 ceeded by poorly fossiliferous marls and clays, then by the 

 Meletta shales, which form a fairly constant band of strata in 

 the Alps and Carpathians, in Alsace, and other localities. 

 They are followed in the Vienna basin by the lowest Miocene 

 strata of Molt and Horn, of Gauderndorf and Eggenburg, 

 which are largely of fresh-water origin, and are covered by the 

 widely-distributed "Schlier" or "Cyrena beds" of brackish- 

 water origin. Then succeeds the richly fossiliferous Marine 

 series, comprising sands, calcareous clays (Tegel), and lime- 

 stones, passing into one another as diverse rock-facies of 

 contemporaneous origin. The limestone facies predominates 

 in the Leitha mountains, while the blue calcareous clays of 

 Baden are the shallow-water equivalents of the Leitha lime- 

 stones. The marine deposits were all comprised by Suess 

 under the general term of " Mediterranean Stage." 



