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of those more distant regions we are, it would seem, hardly author- 

 ised as yet in making any more detailed distinctions than the 

 general one of secondary and tertiary strata ; the latter including 

 the strata in which we trace an approach to the existing species of 

 animals, and the former implying a general comparison with our 

 chalk, oolites, and lower strata. Perhaps we may further distinguish 

 in most countries which have been visited, a great mass of transition 

 slates ; but the establishment of such divisions must be the business 

 of geological observers. 



We have had several valuable additions to this portion of our know- 

 ledge, including, as we must do, Greece and its islands in this foreign 

 district. That the Apennine limestone is the predominant mass of the 

 Morea, had been made known by the researches of MM. Boblaye 

 and Virlet. Mr. Strickland and Mr. Hamilton have told us that the 

 same rock forms a large mass of the island of Zante and other islands 

 in that sea, and of the neighbourhood of Smyrna. They find also 

 tertiary beds, as on the south side of the bay of Smyrna ; on the 

 east side of the island of Zante ; and at Lixouri in Cephalonia, where 

 the tertiary beds are remarkable for the number and beauty of their 

 fossils, some of which have been identified with species existing in 

 the Mediterranean. Dr. Bell, who travelled from Teheran to the 

 shores of the Caspian, has given us an account of the rocks which 

 he observed in Mazanderan. From the statements made by him, we 

 are led to believe, that a more continued and detailed observation of 

 the country would give the true geological order of the deposits 

 in this region; which might then, perhaps, serve as a connecting link 

 between western Asia and India. 



It is among the favourable omens for the geology of India, of 

 which we now see many, that a temperate spirit of generalization 

 has recently been applied to the examination of her soil ; a spirit 

 which contents itself with such a general reference of the foreign to 

 the home strata as we have described, till by its own labours it has 

 earned the right of asserting some closer correspondence. If to deny 

 the value of our geological terms within the home district, where 

 they mark an order which has been repeatedly verified, would be a 

 suicidal scepticism in geologists, there would be a rashness and levity 

 no less fatal in applying them to distant regions where no order has 

 yet been ascertained. 



