416 P. W. Stuart- Menteath — Appendix to Pyrenean Geology. 



IV. — Appendix to the Geology of the Gayarnie District and 

 Pyrenean Geology. 



By P. W. Stuart-Menteath, A.R.S.M. 



MY observations at Gavarnie commenced with the detection of the 

 great fault of the Cirque, sketched in Bull. Soc. Geol. of 1868, 

 and are summarized in my " Pyrenean Geology," pp. 169, Dulau & Co., 

 completed to 1907. The Hippurite limestone having been classed and 

 mapped as typically metamorphosed Cambrian, on the ground that my 

 maps and descriptions are d priori inexact, I have recently been con- 

 cerned with the rectification of the simultaneously asserted Triassic 

 age of the gj-pseous marls, which I have found to be Tertiary and 

 Cretaceous, from Biarritz to Cardona. Before 1868 the Hippurites of 

 Gavarnie and Heas were already described as anomalous by Leymerie 

 in his Manual and papers, and by Frossard in his " Guide du Geologue." 

 The only specifically determined specimen mentioned by Bresson is 

 from "near the Hourquette d' Alans," a point touching the never- 

 questioned Cretaceous beyond the great fault, and situated at 600 metres 

 above the anomalous sheet in question, as it is figured on Bresson's 

 largest sections. The only fossil of his basal Ordovician I had long 

 previously ascertained to be in a fallen fragment from a peak to the 

 west, outside the rocks in dispute. His ' fundamental section ' east of 

 Gedre is a local accident due to a fault, and his section of the Cirque 

 is wildly in contradiction to the real stratification, as well as his 

 section of the Spanish slope of the pass of La Canao and the Hount 

 Sainte. All these errors are corrected on his definitive map of the 

 French Survey, and in the report of the meeting of the Societe 

 Geologique in the Pyrenees in 1906. At that meeting the theory 

 founded by M. Carez on the contradiction of my description of Eaux 

 Chaudes, of Bull. Soc. Geol. of 1893, was explicitly acknowledged to be 

 baseless and untenable by that writer himself, as well as hj all 

 present.' 



A course of lectures on the jN^ew Geology, delivered by M. Leon 

 Bertrand at the College de France, and reported in the " Eevue 

 Generale des Sciences " of 29th February, asserts that all geologists 

 are adhering to his tenets as verified in the Pyrenees ; and the 

 volume of the Bulletin of the French Survej* just published (No. 118) 

 presents nearly 200 pages of gorgeously illustrated compilation 

 to the effect that the interpretation of the Pyrenees proposed by 

 M. Carez and himself is correct, in spite of all observations to the 

 contrary, and especially in spite of the trifling anomalies of Gavarnie 

 and Eaux Chaudes. He explicitly maintains that his fii'st observations 

 at Biarritz are correct, and that he is warranted in extending them 



1 In \iew of these results, the two papers which I presented at Eaux Chaudes have 

 been suppressed, and I have been refused all rights as a member of the Societe 

 Geologique, in spite of a new formal presentation, signed by M. Bresson and 

 M. Fournier, the two survey officers best acquainted with my work. Any novel 

 result of my field observations in the Pyrenees since 1866 will consequently appear 

 dismissible as a priori inexact, and any necessary reference to the conditions under 

 which I work will appear to be obviously incredible and deserving of prompt 

 suppression. 



