formations of the Lombard Alps, S79 



Gomberto in the Valdagno, and many points of the Monte 

 Berici, which the author has not visited. 



2dly. That all these formations are analogous, in all their 

 important characters, to the upper sediment formations com- 

 monly called tertiary ; and consequently to the marine for- 

 mations aboTe the chalk of the Paris basin. But as two 

 epochs of these formations have been recognised, one beneath 

 the gypsum and the other above it, M. Brongniart has en» 

 deavoured to determine to which of the two they should be 

 referred. He remarks that the presence of shells, which 

 much more resemble those of the calcaire grossier below the 

 gypsum than those of the upper marine formation ; that the 

 presence of certain species, such as nummulites, the Nerita 

 conoidea, the Caryophillites, &c. which have only yet been 

 found in this lower formation ; that of the lignites, the fish, 

 and the chlorite or green earth, all of which appear to belong 

 to it; that the absence of sandstone and mica, or at least 

 the rarity of this substance, so abundant in (he upper for- 

 mation, present an union of characters which would induce 

 us to refer the calcareo-trappean formation of the Vincentin 

 to the calcaire grossier beneath the gypsum of the Paris 

 basin, which consequently places its formation at an epoch 

 anterior to that in which the rocks (also named tertiary), 

 were deposited that constitute the subapennine hills, so 

 well described by M. Broccbi. 



The presence of basalts and trappean rocks seems, in the 

 first instance, to be peculiar to the tertiary rocks of the 

 Vicentin, for this rock is not known in the formations of 

 the environs of Paris ; but, besides considering it as the pro-,- 

 duct of local phenomena and peculiar to the north of Italy, 

 Id. Brongniart conceives that a resemblance may be found, 

 (though very distant certainly), between the grains of greeft 

 earth disseminated through the lower strata of the calcaire 

 grossier and the decomposed and even loosely aggregated 

 trappean rocks, which generally constitute the predomi- 

 nant substance of the brecciola, a substance also mixed 

 with the limestone ; so that this rock appears to differ from 

 i\ie chlorite limestone (calcaire chlo?jtee) of the lower strata 



