Von Koenen — Belgian Tertiaries. 505 



I venture to offer a few remarks thereon. I have visited Antwerp 

 upon five separate occasions, in three different years, and have 

 always seen new cuttings in the main ditch at the forts, and in the 

 excavations for a new harbour between the town and the Fort 

 d'Austruweel. I have stayed there altogether above two months 

 collecting a large quantity of fossils, mostly from the untouched 

 beds, and as my observations differ in so many parts from those of 

 Mr. Godwin- Austen, I think it necessary to call attention to, at least, 

 the more important ones, on which he bases his theories. It is most 

 unfortunate that he does not follow in his paper the divisions of the 

 Tertiaries of any of the authors who had already described these 

 beds ; and that he does not himself explain where he intends to 

 make these divisions, nor the names by which they shall be called. 

 It is impossible, therefore, to say much about this point ; but there 

 are certainly more than two Tertiary horizons. The Barton clay 

 does not correspond in age with the " Eupel clay " (which Mr. 

 Godwin- Austen calls Eupellien clay), as stated by him (p. 234, op. cit.). 

 The Tertiary beds of Cassel, Luithorst, Freden, and Diekholz, which 

 he puts into the Upper Kainozoic (p. 241), are older than the Faluns 

 de la Touraine, and coeval with the Grafenberg, near Diisseldorf, 

 and the Sternberg sandstones which he puts (p. 237) into the 

 Tongrien ; but the Tongrien of d'Orbigny is not well defined. That 

 of Dumont and that of Ch. Mayer is older than all these. The 

 Faluns of Touraine and most of those of Bordeaux are older than 

 the Crag and the Cotentin according to the opinion of all other 

 geologists, whereas Mr. Godwin- Austen says they were synchronous 

 (p. 239), but without giving any reason for this opinion. 



This classification, then, of Mr. Godwin-Austen's, invalidates his 

 otherwise valuable map, because so many different periods are con- 

 founded together. As to his theories about the condition of the 

 Crag-sea area, and the origin of its deposits, I cannot agree with 

 him at all, because I have observed many important facts differing 

 very much from those stated by him. 



For example, he considers the " Sable noir " as coeval with the 

 Coralline Crag, but thinks it impossible to separate these from the 

 Eed Crag and from the Scaldisien (called in Mr. Godwin-Austen's 

 paper " Scaldesien"), because this should "contain only dead and 

 drifted shells," (p. 233), "wholly extraneous to it, belonging to all 

 regions of depth, and all periods of the Crag formation " (p. 238), 



The difference of the fauna of the " Sable noir " and of the Coral- 

 line Crag is explained by him (p. 238) "by the differences which 

 result from depth and condition of sea-bed," and (p. 241) "taken 

 together both form a complete marine fauna, representing a greater 

 range of sea-zones," The Systeme Diestien was deposited in thirty 

 to forty fathoms (p. 233), in a maximum thickness of four metres 

 (p. 233), The Systeme Scaldisien was (p. 232) "heaped up imder 

 inconsiderable depths of water," and formed about six feet, but at 

 no place exceeded probably eight feet ; " it was a dead shell gravel ; 

 " not one of the shells had lived where it is now foimd." 



Now I can assure Mr. Godwin-Austen that the thickness of the 



