250 



Feb. 2. — Robert Francis Seale, Esq. Secretary to the Governor 

 of St. Helena, was elected a Fellow of this Society. 



The reading of the paper, by Roderick Impey Murchison, Esq. 

 Sec. G.S. F.R.S., begun at the last Meeting, was concluded. 



This memoir contains the results of observations made by the au- 

 thor during last summer, with the view of extending the researches 

 of Professor Sedgwick and himself* : the present remarks being 

 limited to the consideration of that portion of the Alps, on the 

 northern side of the axis, which is included between the lake of 

 Constance on the west, and Vienna on the east, followed by a short 

 description of the valley of the Danube. 



1. Primary Rocks. — He notices that. Mr. Partsch and himself 

 discovered that traces of the primary axis of the Alps reappear in 

 the Leitha-gebirge, and are there overlaid on each side by tertiary 

 deposits. 



2. Transition Rocks frith Iron Ores are briefly alluded to, merely 

 for the purpose of marking their place in the series. 



3. Rauchtvacke or Magnesian Limestone. — The author shows that 

 the formation is much developed near the eastern termination of 

 the Austrian Alps, (St. Johann, Kirchbiichel, Sobenstein, &c.) 

 that it there dips under red sandstone and Alpine limestone, and 

 is quite similar to rocks occupying the same position in the Tyrol 

 (Schwatz, Soil, &c). 



4. Next) Red Sandstone frith Salt and Gypsum. — In former sections, 

 (published by Professor Sedgwick and the author,) this formation 

 is only designated in one line of valleys, i. e. along the great es- 

 carpment of the Alpine limestone ; recent observations have, how- 

 ever, convinced the author, that it is reproduced in other longitu- 

 dinal depressions, further removed from the axis of the chain. In 

 the valley of Abtenau, for instance, he ascertained that the red 

 sandstone containing thick masses of gypsum and several salt- 

 springs, dips conformably on one side under black shale and lime- 

 stone, of the age of the lias, and on the other is overlaid uncon- 

 formably by the shelly deposits of Gosau. He also cites Berchtes- 

 paden, with its salt-mines, as another case of a valley in which 

 the new red-sandstone is denuded, and he shows that the strata 

 there dip beneath the whole of the oolitic series of the Kneifel- 

 berg and Untersberg. 



5. Lower Alpine Limestone, or Lias and Inferior Oolite. — It is 

 stated that the dark-coloured limestone and shale which surmount 

 the red sandstone at Abtenau, range northwards with various con- 

 tortions, and are well exposed in the gorge of the Mertelbach be- 

 low Crispel ; where, accompanied by M. Von Lill, the author col- 

 lected several fossils, viz. : Ammonites, two species, (one very near 

 to A. Conybeari,) Pecten, three species, small Gryphsea, Mya, 



* One of Prof. Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison's papers on the Austrian 

 Alps, here alluded to, will be found in the Philosophical Magazine and An- 

 nals, vol. viii. p. 81. See also the Proceedings of the Geological Society, 

 pp. 153, 227. 



