224 



in the Tatra, or northern Carpathians. The Alpine limestone is cha- 

 racterized generally by organic remains common to the superior se- 

 condary formations, such as Belemnites, Ammonites, Nautili, Echini, 

 and many zoophytes ; but accurate subdivisions of it are made with 

 great difficulty. 



One of the most important of these subdivisions is marked by the 

 presence of salt and gypsum, which are found in shale, associated 

 with gray sandstone and limestone, containing Belemnites, Ammonites 

 and Fuci ; and in some places, as at Hallein, with orthoceratite and 

 madreporic limestone. 



Dolomite prevails in the upper part of the Alpine limestone, and is 

 usually connected with peculiar anomalies of stratification and incli- 

 nation, which according to the author offer evidence of the rupture and 

 friction of the displaced masses ; the whole having, he conceives, been 

 elevated and depressed by the action of subterranean gaseous forces. 



Another member of the Alpine limestone is characterized by lead 

 and iron ores. 



The Alpine limestone passes into a superior sandstone (designated 

 as " Viennasandstone"), with alternations of marl and schistose, litho- 

 graphic limestone and whetstones. This part of the series contains 

 coal at Greater Ipsitz, &c. with Cycadese ; and in other places this group 

 is capped by ruiniform, compact limestone, with Ammonites, Belem- 

 nites, and Fucoides. (St. Veit, Sontagsberg, Elixhausen, &c.) 



Serpentine and greenstone traverse secondary sandstone at Ipsitz, 

 and both sandstone and Alpine limestone at Willendorff. 



The author then proceeds to identify certain rocks having a similar 

 mineralogical character, whether in the northern Carpathians, where 

 they rest upon the "Vienna sandstone", or at Griinbach near Vienna, 

 where they are. stated to contain Belemnites and Ananchytes ovata, 

 with the formations of Gosau-thal, which Messrs. Sedgwick and Mur- 

 chison, he states, have erroneously described as tertiary. He does not 

 admit that this deposit of Gosau can be considered as intermediary 

 between the secondary and tertiary formations, but he assigns to it 

 the place of the lowest secondary green-sand. 



The tertiary character of many of the remains is not considered by 

 him to prove the age of this deposit, for he. states that some fossils in 

 the oldest secondary rocks at Halle, Bleiberg,and Maibel in Carinthia, 

 have also a tertiary appearance. 



The true green-sand of the Alps is then described ; and the author 

 identifies the iron ores of Sonthofen with those of the Kressenberg, 

 which Count Munster, as well as Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison, 

 has considered tertiary*. 



Chalk is stated not to exist in the German Alps, though the lower 

 green-sand of Gosau contains beds like the Planer Kalk or upper green- 

 sand. The tertiary deposits of Austria are stated to belong entirely 



* In this part of the paper Dr. Boue has been led into an error in conse- 

 quence of misunderstanding a passage in the abstract of a communication 

 by Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison, published in the Phil. Mag. and Annals 

 for January 1830, p. 53. The deposit of Sonthofen was never considered 

 tertiary : but on the contrary, was distinctly stated by them to be secondary. 



