159 



Alpine limestone; in other instances they are conformable. And 

 there are beds which, both from their fossils and from their struc- 

 ture, seem to exhibit a connecting link between the secondary and 

 tertiary formations. 



3. The system above described contains three or four distinct 

 zones of coal or lignite, with many thousand feet of conglomerate, 

 sandstone and marl between each ; beginning in the lower, and end- 

 ing in the upper parts of the series. 



4. These younger deposits have the same general relations to the 

 older chain, as the subalpine tertiary formations of the north of Italy ; 

 from which it seems to follow that the northern and western basins 

 of the Danube, and the tertiary basin of the subalpine and sub- 

 apennine regions, must have been left dry at the same period. The 

 conclusion is further confirmed by the suite of fossils in the adjoin- 

 ing molasse of Switzerland. 



5. All the transverse sections prove the recent longitudinal eleva- 

 tion of the neighbouring chain. The tertiary beds form an inclined 

 plane, down which the Alpine waters stream into the Danube in 

 nearly undeviating lines, greatly contrasted with the sinuous chan- 

 nels through which the waters escape into the plains from the older 

 rocks. 



6. The authors endeavour to confirm the preceding conclusion by 

 the facts exhibited in the drainage of the south of Bavaria. They 

 state that the whole system of drainage, is in a state of continual 

 change and of progress, and that the rivers have not yet worked 

 for themselves any thing like permanent channels. 



7. The authors lastly account for some of the greater denudations, 

 by debacles which must have taken place during the elevation of the 

 Alps, and by the bursting of a succession of lakes since that period. 

 In confirmation of which, they state that there is not a single valley 

 among the newer formations of southern Bavaria, in which may 

 not be seen many parallel terraces (like the parallel roads of Scot- 

 land) indicating the residence of nearly stagnant water at several 

 successive levels. 



A paper " On ^the discovery of the bones of the Iguanodon, and 

 other large reptiles, in the Isle of Wight and Isle of Purbeck ; by 

 the Rev. William Buckland, D.D. V.P.G.S. F.R.S. &c. &c," was 

 then read. 



Hitherto the Iguanodon has been found only within the limits of 

 the Weald of Sussex, where it was first discovered by Mr. Mantell, 

 in the iron sandstone formation of Tilgate Forest. Dr. Buckland 

 has recently ascertained the existence of this animal in two other 

 localities of the same formation : one near Sandown Fort on the 

 south coast of the Isle of Wight ; the other in Swanwich Bay, at 

 the eastern extremity of the Isle of Purbeck. In all these places 

 its matrix is the same, ferruginous sandstone, to which the name of 

 Wealden or Hastings sandstone, has been applied by recent ob- 

 servers in geology, being intermediate between the lowest beds of 

 the green sand formation and the upper beds of the Purbeck lime- 

 tone, and its fossil shells exhibiting such an admixture of marine 



