Dfxembek lo, 190SJ 



jVA TURE 



Brunn area to the east must have been covered by the 

 older sediments, since they yield no pebbles to the con- 

 glomerates, and their present proximity is due to faulting. 



In the succeeding part (Iviii. Band, i Heft, 1908) Herr 

 P. S. Richarz describes (p. i) the hills traversed by the 

 Danube between Hainburg and Pozs6ny (Pressburg), a 

 region of the most romantic interest. His sections on 

 pp. 31 and 32 recall the towers climbing up on both sides 

 along the crags, and the narrow passage eastward into 

 lands long subject to the Turk. Beneath the castles of 

 Theben on the north and Hainburg on the south, Lias 

 limestone rests on an old series of phyllites and schists. 

 The crystalline character of the schists is attributed to the 

 action of the intrusive granite of the Little Carpathians, 

 and the alteration of the Lias points to a post-Jurassic 

 age for this intrusion. The author does not wish to 

 extend this conclusion to the Carpathians in general, since 

 the granite of the High Tatra is known to be pre-Permian. 

 He is a supporter of the potency of contact-metamorphism 

 in producing types of rock previously attributed to dynamic 

 action, and on p. 48 he connects the rock-sequence in the 

 Hainburg area, through the Leitha range, with the 

 Semmering region, where the metamorphosed Kossen beds 

 recall the crystalline Lias of the Little Carp.Tthians. Herr 

 F. Broili (p. 49), in describing re- 

 mains of the amphibian Sclerocephalus 

 from the " Gaskohle " of Xiirschan, 

 in Bohemia, enters fully into the 

 question of the age of this deposit, 

 and concludes in favour of its being 

 Upper Carboniferous rather than 

 lowest Permia^. Fric has previously 

 treated it as Permian. Herr W. 

 Hammer (p. 79) furnishes a detailed 

 paper on the Ortler Group and the 

 Ciavalatschkamm, which should 

 appeal to climbers as well as to pro- — ~- 



fessed geologists. Divergent views 

 have been held regarding the struc- 

 ture of this region, and the author 

 was entrusted with the preparation of 

 a detailed geological map, which will 

 be published in 1909. His conclusions 

 are opposed to those of Termier, who 

 would introduce the principles of 

 " Nappismus " to explain the folding 

 of this part of the eastern Alps 

 (p. 194). 



In the Verhandluiigeu of the same 

 institute, Dr. Franz Kossmat (Nos. 2 

 and 3, 1908, p. 69) describes the 

 country on the Isonzo round Karfreit 

 (Kobarid or Caporetto), a region rarely 

 traversed by the modern traveller, 

 though it lies on one of the high- 

 ways to Trieste. An overthrust here 



brings Triassic dolomite above tlxsch beds, which are 

 probably of Cretaceous age. The Jurassic to Eocene floor 

 of the basin of Flitsch, which is finely seen, surrounded 

 by Triassic limestones, as one comes down from the Predil 

 Pass, is regarded by the author as the nose of a synclinal 

 pushed over into the Triassic area from the south-east. 

 He has to resist the temptation of treating it as a 

 Fenster " in this region of conspicuous overthrusts. In 

 Nos. 5 and 6, 1908, p. iii, Herr Wegner, of Breslau, 

 adds considerably to our knowledge of the mammalian 

 fauna of Oppeln, in Silesia. He points out that Plio- 

 pillieciis antiquus, though represented only by teeth and 

 jaws, is so widely spread in the Upper Miocene of Europe 

 that it may be regarded as a characteristic fossil. 

 _ In No. 7, Herr Pctrascheck (p. 140) describes the rela- 

 tion of the Sudetic mass to the adjacent part of the 

 Carpathians, and supports the views of Suess, with some 

 minor modifications. He thus urges that pre-Miocene 

 folding had much to do with the present structure of the 

 Sudetic area. 



The late Mr. T. Barron's memoir on " The Topography 

 and Geology of the District between Cairo and Suez " has 

 been issued by the Survey Department of the Finance 

 Ministry of Egypt (Cairo, 1907). It will be new to many 

 who know the railway that runs close beside the Ismailia 

 NO. 2041, VOL. 79] 



Canal to learn that traces of a direct and older line lie 

 to the south of it, in more broken country, and near the 

 historic post-road. The great macadamised road is now 

 becoming lost in sand. The rocks described from this 

 desert region are Cretaceous and Cainozoic. On p. 112 

 tliere is a striking passage, in support of Prof. LapworthV 

 view of the migration of earth-folds as advancing crust- 

 waves ; the author traces a trough into a wave-crest and 

 then into a succeeding trough, as ho surveys the history 

 of his district from Eocene to Middle Miocene times. 

 Practically the same succession is seen in the Paris basin, 

 and we wish that Mr. Barron had been spared to state 

 his views as to the further course of the wave that has 

 controlled the deposits of Lower Egypt. 



From the Geological Survey of India we have received 

 Mr. Hayden's " Geology of Tsang and tj in CentraP 

 Tibet " (Memoirs, vol. xx.x •., part ii., 1907). The 

 foliated biotite-granite of the ^alayas is continued into 

 this region, and is undoubtedly usive in Jurassic rocks, 



which cover the greater part the area. The Eocene 



marine beds do not contain nut nulites, and may be older 

 than the nummulitic stage of other areas (p. 56). The 

 memoir includes photographic plates showing fine outcrops 

 of strata on almost barren mountain sides. Part iii. of 



Photo ^ 



\U'. Beattie and Co., Auckland^ 

 The Town of Coromandel, Auckland, situated on Recent Deposits at the foot of hill.^ 

 formed of pre-Jurassic sediments. 



vol. xxxvi. of the Records of the same survey (190S, price 

 I rupee) contains several palasontological papers, one of 

 which, by .Mr. Vredenburg, reviews the Cretaceous species 

 of Orbitoides in India. Dr. Bleeck, of Munich (p. 164), 

 describes the occurrence of corundum in metamorphic lime- 

 stone in the Kachin Hills of Upper Burma. He urges 

 that the crystalline limestone originated here, at any rate, 

 by contact-alteration of a sediment, under conditions of 

 pressure sufficient to produce corundum and to impart a 

 foliation to the invading granite. 



The Geological Commission of the Colony of the Cape 

 of Good Hope, working under conditions of peculiar 

 difficulty, has already issued in 1908 four large geological 

 sheets of the map of the north-west area, including 

 Mafeking, Vryburg, and Kimberley. These can be bought 

 in London from Messrs. Wesley and Son, price is. 6d. 

 each. The unconformity between the glacial Dwyka beds 

 and the older rocks coines out well on Sheet 50, and in 

 Sheet 42 we reach a district near Kimberley where the 

 striated surfaces due to Permian ice are admirably seen 

 in the field. The Twelfth Annual Report of the Com- 

 mission, for 1907 (1908), by Dr. A. W. Rogers and Mr. 

 Du Toit, describes much of the area of the maps with 

 characteristic clearness. An interesting example of 

 " pillow lava," a much discussed type of fiow, is describee 



