8 Miss M. M. Ogilvie— Coral in the ''Dolomites:'' 



Cassian. The block-like structure observed in tbe Schlern and 

 Fassa district becomes less prominent in Enneberg, and we are 

 rather presented with thick unevenly bedded limestones full of 

 Cidaris spines and Thecosmilian Corals, more rarely with Brachio- 

 pods and small Mollusca. 



These are immediately succeeded in Enneberg by the great 

 mass of thinly-bedded typical Cassian beds. The latter, therefore, 

 correspond on Stuores meadows to the upper part of the Cipit 

 Limestones of the Seisser Alpe and Sella Joch, and to. some part of 

 the lower horizons of Schlern dolomite at Schlern, and at Sella and 

 Sasso Pitschi. Sometimes the outpouring of volcanic material, 

 which was constantly recurring in Upper Fassa, caused the sudden 

 disappearance of the rich fauna of Enneberg. During the short 

 periods of disturbed deposition which then ensued, Echinodermata, 

 even more than Corals, peopled the seas. 



Thin beds of Limestone were thus formed at intervals amid 

 tufaceous sediments of Cassian age, but the main thickness of 

 Cassian beds in Enneberg is composed of soft marls and limestones 

 full of the remains of Brachiopods, Mollusca, and many species of 

 non-reef-building Corals. This fauna lived, I believe, in an inner 

 area of quiet water, secluded from the Southern Ocean by the Cipit 

 reefs and volcanic rocks, some deeper channels being left free. 



Whereas the Wengen and Cassian beds retain their tufaceous 

 character, in greater or less degree, throughout the whole district of 

 Enneberg, they show it much less in the corresponding deposits of 

 Ampezzo. Fine, unfossiliferous shales and clays take the place 

 of the tufaceous grits, and although Corals and Sponges occur in 

 hard limestones of Cassian age, they are seldom in suflScient magni- 

 tude to form any appreciable reef-like thickening. The same is 

 true of the northern or " Abtey " part of Enneberg, and of the 

 deposits of Seeland Valley and Misurina, north-east of Ampezzo. 

 Hence Cipit-Limestone building flourished most in the volcanic 

 areas of Groden and Upper Fassa. I observed, however, in the 

 higher horizons of Cassian strata at Ampezzo thick, reef-life 

 extensions of Limestones, mostly one mass of the spines of 

 Cidaris Hausmanni. They form bands of rock between softer 

 beds, and are present as well in the undisturbed series below the 

 Schlern dolomite of Lagazuoi as in the disturbed succession near 

 the small Lago Majorera to the east (close to the Falzarego road). 

 The stratigraphical facts afford evidence that the Cassian marls are 

 both in Enneberg and Ampezzo succeeded by a dolomitic rock, and 

 never conformably by fossiliferous Kaibl sandstones and marls. 

 As might be expected from the occurrence of an upper palseontological 

 zone of Cassian beds in the Ampezzo districts (Upper Cassian — vide 

 M. M. Ogilvie, loc. cit. pp. 46, 47), the dolomite rock which succeeds 

 Cassian strata did not everywhere begin to be deposited at the 

 same time. 



In the south-west, where a true marine formation had been con- 

 tinued throughout the Wengen and Cassian period, the deposit has 

 only sometimes a stratified appearance. Mojsisovics has ascribed 



