Notices of Memoirs — Trias in the Caucasus. 171 



I am indebted to Mr. H. A. Allen for naming the specimens. The 

 list is of interest as containing several species not previously recorded 

 from the Cowstone beds.' In this district Selbornian ammonites are 

 rare, consequently the occurrence of Amm. rostratus, the zonal fossil, 

 is interesting. The same can be said of Necrocarcinus tricarinatus, the 

 crab, whose horizon is now fixed. Hoploparia longimana, Sow., had 

 previously been found by De Ranee in the Cowstone beds below the 

 roadway between Charmouth and Lyme.- Crioceras has not hitherto 

 been recorded amongst the local fossils. 



3sroTiCES OIF 3ynEi»^oi:E?,S- 



I 



I. — The Discovery op Tkias in the Caucasus. 

 Translated from the Russian by Felix Oswald, D.Sc, F.G.S, 



N a preliminary communication by Dr. Th. Cernysev, Director of 

 the Geological Committee of Russia and Foreign Correspondent 

 of the Geological Society, in April, 1907, to the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences of St. Petersburg,'' an important addition has been made to 

 the geology of the Caucasus by the announcement of the discovery 

 of beds of Upper Triassic age. Pending the publication of fuller 

 details, which will be published in the Memoirs of the Geological 

 Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, the following abridged 

 translation, which I have made from the Russian of the original article, 

 may help to render this discovery more widely known. It is of special 

 interest to find that on the one hand the fossils are in many cases 

 identical with those of the Upper Trias of Balia Maden in Western 

 Asia Minor, and that on the other hand in the nearest occurrence of 

 Trias to that of the Caucasus, viz. that of Julfa on the Araxes in 

 Armenia, the Upper Trias is altogether wanting, and only the lower 

 division of the Trias is present, overlying Permian. 



Dr. Cernysev stated that in 1903 "W. I. Worobiev conducted an 

 expedition into the Kuban territory of the Caucasus for the purpose 

 of geological and mineralogical research, especially in the district 

 between the Rivers Laba and Bielaya. Since W. I. Worobiev unfortu- 

 nately lost his life on the Dzitak glacier the results of his journey 

 have not been published. His collections, journals, and maps were, 

 however, fortunately recovered by 'E. I. AVorobiev in an unharmed 

 condition, and are now in the possession of the Geological Museum of 

 the Academy. Even a cursory examination of Worobiev' s collection 

 showed that it would cause a fundamental and essential alteration in 

 the geological map of the Caucasus, and that in particular it would 

 affect the composition, as hitherto known, of part of the Centi'al 

 Caucasus range. The most remarkable discovery, however, made by 

 Worobiev was his finding beds of undoubted Triassic age, which are 



^ See Jukes-Browne, Cretaceous Mocks of Britain, 1900, vol. i, p. 187 ; and 

 H. B. Woodward & W. A. E. Ussher, Geology of the Country near Sidmouth and 

 Lyme Regis, 1906, p. 43. 



* Geol. Mag., 1874, pp. 247, 253. 



3 Bull. Acad. Imp. St. Petersb., ser., vi pp. 277-80. 



