﻿120 Notices of Memoirs — Th. Fuchs — On the Tertiaries of Malta. 



floras ; where animals only occur, they must decide from their part ; 

 but if both animals and plants occur, they must both be used in an 

 appropriate way ; but we must always take this maxim for our 

 guidance, that already existing organisms could much easier sur- 

 vive, than that organisms generally known as higher in stratifica- 

 tion should be transferred to much lower strata ; and how such 

 cases can be explained by colonization, everybody knows best for 

 himself, and I have indicated already above. 



We must further consider that formations in general have proved 

 not to be so strictly limited, and that very often forms from the 

 lower pass into the higher, as for instance the Ehsetic beds, as 

 passage-beds between the Keuper and Lias; the Wealden formation, 

 as a passage-bed between the Upper Jura and Lower Cretaceous, 

 etc., were established ; there is certainly such a passage also be- 

 tween the Carboniferous and Permian formation, and in Bohemia 

 the Niirschan Gas-coal establishes this passage : it is therefore to be 

 considered as a passage-bed between the Carboniferous and Permian 

 formations there. 



ITOTIOIBS OIF nvcEiMioiias. 



L — On the Tertiaries of Malta.' By Th. Fuchs. Proceed. 

 Imp. Acad. Vienna, Jan. 20, 1876, vol. Ixx. p. 92. 

 [Communicated by Count Marschall, C.M.G.S., etc.] 

 r'PHESE Tertiaries may be divided into two groups ; the upper one 

 X answering to the Leitha-limestone of the Vienna Basin ; the 

 lower one to the deposits of Schio near Vicenza, of Monte Titano 

 near San Marino, of Dego, Carcare, and Belforte in Italy, those of 

 Bazas and Merignac in France, the Marine Molasse of Bavaria, the 

 Sotzka beds of Styria, and the Pectunculus beds of Hungary. The 

 two groups are conformable ; but, though petrographically analogous, 

 offer different palseontological characters. 



The succession of beds (in descending order) is : — 



A. LeitJta-Kalk Group. 



1st. — Leitha-limestones in all the varieties occurring in the Vienna 

 Basin, and a peculiar compact variety with breccia-like texture, 

 bearing more resemblance to the Triassic " Eauhwackes " of the 

 Alps than to any Miocene Leitha-limestone. 



The plateaux formed of these limestones are notably worn out by 

 atmospheric agencies, their superficial erosions being filled by a 

 brick-red earthy substance, like those of the Illyrian Karst. Organic 

 remains, identical with those of the Leitha-limestones of the Vienna 

 Basin, are locally abundant. 



2nd. — Green Sands and Heterostegina-limestones of Gozo, im- 

 mediately beneath the Leitha-limestones with an enormous quantity 

 of Polyzoa, Heterostegince, Echinidce, Ostrece, and Pectines, and in 

 every respect answering to the sands of Neudorf, south of Vienna. 



1 Papers on the Geology and Fossils of Malta, by Duncan, Jones, and Hutton, 

 have appeared in the Geological Magazine, Vol. I. pp. 96 — 106, and Vol. III. 

 pp. 145 — 152, which may be consulted in connexion with this communication. — Edit. 

 Geol. Mag. 



