224 Letters of Mr. Brongniart, with remarks. 



the extent and the nature of the tertiary* formations, anala- 

 gous to those in the environs of Paris. I have not only tra- 

 ced these formations quite to Rome, but I have fully ascer- 

 tained, by conversations with M. Brocchi, that they are 

 found also at the extremity of Calabria near Regio. 



"I have had moreover, a long time, in my collection, a 

 piece of madrepore which came from this region, and 

 which led me formerly to suppose, the existence of such 

 formations, among those that were so far removed from 

 what we had been accustomed to consider as their centre; 

 I have learned from him that they exist under the volcanic 

 rocks of Ischia;f finally, I saw them near Geneva, at a great 

 elevation, in the environs of the small town of St. Re mo, 

 and on my return at the foot of the southern side of the 

 Alpes, from Bassano to the environs of Verona at Rouca, 

 Bolca &c. J am occupied in digesting a notice upon the 

 analogy of these formations with ours, and I have learned 

 with much satisfaction that Mr. Buckland, who on his return 

 from Italy, also saw the same places, observed the same a- 

 nalogy, an analogy which holds in almost all the characters, 

 and especially in the group ("I'ensemble") of fossil shells, 

 and other marine bodies, which they contain. 



"Thus a definite position is assigned in the strata of the 

 globe, to the celebrated fossil fish of Bolca, that is, in the 

 tertiary formations in analogy with those in the environs of 

 Paris, and with those of other places. Mr. Beudant has 

 just found these same formations in Hungary, and Mr, Prevost, 

 one of my former pupils, has recently discovei'ed them near 

 Baden in the environs of Vienna, in Austria. He has pre- 

 pared a memoir on this subject, and will soon read it to the 

 Institute. 



" But this analogy, so striking and complete, between the 

 rocks and the tertiary formations, in countries very remote 

 from each other, is not the only one which exists, and which 

 has strongly impressed me as well as Mr. Buckland. 



" The greater part and possibly the whole of the rocks 

 which compose the crust of our globe, present, in their na- 

 turie, in their structure, and in their order of superposition 



* We presume coinciding; generally with the secondary formations of 

 Werner. Ed. 



t A small Island, scarcely four leagues from Naples. 



