Notices of Memoirs — Tertiary Geology of Calabria. 323 



I. — Tertiary Geology op the Eeggiano (Calabria).^ 



IN a large quarto volume of the memoirs of the Accademia dei 

 Lincei, Professor Sequenza gives a description of the geology 

 of the province of Eeggio in Calabria, and gives a classified list of 

 all the fossils found in the Tertiaries, together -with, a description of 

 nevs^ species, accompanied with numerous figures. The number of 

 fossils reaches the astonishing figure of 2686, of which 994: are now 

 known living, and 445 are considered new. The same author has 

 already described and given lists of Sicilian fossils belonging to 

 various classes, and while, as a rule, palseontological work is better 

 where it is not spread over too wide a field, yet Prof. Sequenza 

 stands very much alone in his Calabrian and Sicilian work, and 

 therefore it is the more important to make the work as comprehen- 

 sive as possible, and by the present communication he has erected a 

 memorial of his industry, to be compared with the series of works 

 on French palaeontology published by D'Orbigny, 



About one-half of the Reggiano consists of crystalline rock and 

 most of the rest is Tertiary. After the " terrain primitive " and 

 Paleeozoic schists, Jurassic and Cenomanian beds are found in a few 

 places ; but when we come to the Cainozoic there is an almost 

 uninterrupted series of all the Tertiary formations ; the Eocene is, 

 however, not so instructively developed as the Middle and Upper 

 Tertiaries. The Parisian, Bartonian, and Ligurian, are found with, 

 but few fossils, and those mostly Protozoa ; but as much attention has 

 not been given to these as the Miocene and Pliocene beds, and 

 Professor Sequenza thinks that with further study more may 

 possibly be learnt about them. 



The really fossiliferous beds begin with the Tongrian, in which 

 nearly all classes are present ; but the Aquitanian, Langhian, 

 Helvetian, and Tortonian, are all much richer in fossils, both the 

 Helvetian and Tortonian being extremely interesting, not only from 

 the large number of fossils found, but also from the general 

 character of the fauna, most classes being well represented. In 

 the Helvetian 329 species are mentioned, 69 of which are living, 

 and 893 species were found in the Tortonian, 23 per cent, of which 

 are living. The term oligocan is here dropped, as it is thought best 

 to unite beds of that age to the Miocene. The Messinian was 

 unfossiliferous, and the author of the memoir considers that there 

 has been a misunderstanding about the Messinian, a name, he points 

 out, first given by Carl Mayer for a zone at the close of the Miocene, 

 which he erroneously placed as coetaneous with the Zanclean of 

 South Italy, a formation deposited in a somewhat deep sea and now 

 known to be of later age than the Messinian and certainly Pliocene. 

 The Messinian is known through Italy and Sicily as the Congeria or 

 Gypsum-sulphur beds. The Miocene covers a diminishing area 



^ Le Forraazioni Terziarie nella Prov. di Reggio (Calabria), del Prof. G. Sequenza, 

 Mem. Accad. dei Lincei, vol. cclxxvii., 1880. With Maps and Plates. 



