TBANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 571 



ancients avoided the marble lying near the axis of elevation, that beincf of less good 

 quality than in other parts. A Greek company formed a few years back to work 

 the marble attacked it here, where it could be got at least expense ; this discredited 

 the marble in the market, and the company failed, having spent over 160,000/. 

 in a railway, landing-pier, and elaborate installation of various kinds. 



There is a good deal of excellent coloured marble on the island ; but not having 

 been used by the ancient Greeks this is little known. 



6. Preliminary Nute on the alleged Occurrence of Fossils in the Crystalline 

 Schists of the Lepontine Alps. Bi/ Professor T. G. Bonnet, D.Sc, 

 F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author, in company with Mr. J. Eccles, F.G.S., has recently examined 

 some of the sections which have been asserted to demonstrate the occurrence of 

 fossils in crystalline schists of the Alps, and consequently the Meaozoic age of a 

 large part of that group of schists which appears to occupy the highest position in 

 the crystalline series. Of these sections the most important are those on either 

 side of the top of Lukmanier Pass (Scopi, &c ), on the Nufenen Pass, in the Val 

 Piora and in the Val Canaria. lie has arrived at the following conclusions : — 



1. The section in the Val Canaria, which is supposed to demonstrate that 

 black-garnet-schists, kyanite schists, calc-mica schists, &c., overlie and 

 are enfolded in rauchwack^ (probably of Triassic age) has been mis- 

 understood. It is not a .simple fold, but one broken up by a series of 

 thrust-faults. 



1\ In the Val Piora crystalline schists, identical with the above, are insepar- 

 ably associated together, and are disconnected from the rauchwacke, 

 which here, as m the Val Canaria and elsewhere, contains fragments of 

 various members of this series. 



3. The supposed schists with minerals like garnet and staurolite, which on both 



sides of the Lukmanier Pass and on the Nufenen Pass contain fossils 

 (belemnites, Sec), are quite distinct from the above-named group of 

 schists ; the minerals present therein are in a very difl'erent condition, 

 and, so far as the author could judge from field work, suggest a deriva- 

 tion from that group. Such similarity as there is between the two 

 groups may be due partly to this cause, partly (but this only locally) to 

 exceptional pressure having to some extent obliterated the distinctive 

 characteristics — in the one case of a crystalline schist, in the other of an 

 ordinary sedimentary rock. 



4. Additional evidence has been obtained, not in this district only, in support 



of the opinion already expressed by the author, that the crystalline 

 schists of the Alps existed as crystalline schists anterior to any rock 

 which can be recognised as of Mesozoic or even of Palteozoic date. 



When the author has completed the microscopic examination of the specimens 

 which he has collected, he will communicate the details of this and of his field- 

 work to the Geological Society of London, 



7. Exhihition of Specimens of Beloinnites from Luckmanier. 

 By W. W. Watts, M.A., F.G.S. 



8. The Effects of Pressure on Crystalline Limestones,^ 

 By Professor t. G. BoxxEY, D.Sc, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author stated that the Mesozoic limestones of the Alps do not eeem more 

 distinctly crystalline than the later Palaeozoic limestones of Britain, but that the 



' Published in extenso in the Geol. Mai;, for November 1889, pp. 483-48G. 



