The Karstlands of Western Yugoslavia. 405 



hanging valleys notching this limestone scarp to the north and east 

 of the town of Cattaro significantly suggest that these movements 

 took place in comparatively recent geological times. The remarkable 

 straightness of the valleys, together with the truncation and facetting 

 of the spurs, so admirably displayed on both sides of the Teodo 

 massif, would appear to lend additional support to such a view. 



In a general manner, the Scutari basin is analogous to that of 

 Cattaro, and both its eastern and western walls are remarkably 

 abrupt. The latter, separating it from the sea, is known as the 

 Sutorman range, and consists of massive Cretaceous dolomites, 

 which exhibit a remarkably unbroken rectilinear scarp-face when 

 viewed either from Virpazar to the north or Scutari on the south. 

 Through the southern end of this ridge the river Boyana has cut a 

 narrow defile, which forming the only outlet of the basin results in 

 the whole of the floor of the Scutari depression being not infrequently 

 flooded. The eastern wall (which also forms the eastern boundary of 

 the Nitchitchi and Podgoritsa poljes) consists of massive Cretaceous- 

 limestones and doloniites, capped in places by older Tertiary lime- 

 stones. Banked against the eastern face, highly fossiliferous and 

 marine Lower Pliocene beds have been met with at Kopliku,^ 

 strongly suggesting that in early Pliocene times it already formed a 

 fjord of the sea ; and that, like the Cattaro depression, its 

 main outlines were probably determined in Miocene times. Cvijic,^ 

 on the other hand, holds that the maximum intensity of fracture 

 and subsidence took place in the Quaternary period. While the 

 remarkably abrupt nature of the features tend to support such a 

 view, it is a very significant characteristic of all the structural 

 depressions of the karstlands, including the poljes, that they 

 invariably contain Upper Miocene or Pliocene freshwater beds on 

 their floors. 



Limestone Surfaces and Outlines. 



One of the most distinctive features of the Dalmatian islands and 

 littoral, especially when viewed from the sea, is their generally smooth 

 and rounded outlines and contours. Except where the limestone 

 surface is quite bare, or where recently formed river-gorges cut 

 across the plateau, the worn surface is remarkably free from crags 

 and pinnacles. These have been described in some detail by 

 Professor Gregory,^ who refers to them as " pseudo-glacial " features, 

 but points out the complete absence of any evidences of glaciation 

 in this area. They would appear to be " down "-like surfaces, due 

 to the weathering of the limestone, such as are so familiar on the 

 Chalk uplands of Southern Britain and North -Eastern France. 



^ H. Vetters, " Geologie des nordlichen Albaniens " : Denksch. Math. Kl. k. 

 Akad. Wiss., Vienna, vol. Ixxx, 190G, p. 4. 



^ J. Cvijic, " Die dinarisch-albanische Scharung " : Sitzungsber. d. Akad. 

 d. Wissensch., Vienna, vol xc, 1901, pp. 31 et seqq. 



^ J. W. Gregory, " Pseudo-Glacial features in Dalmatia " : Geogr. Journal, 

 London, vol. xlvii, 1915, pp. 105-17. 



