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GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



for making porcelain ware : it is also sometimes coloured grey, red, 

 or yellow, and then it resembles the variegated marls of the Keuper. 

 Immediately on these repose beds of a coarse limestone, which alter- 

 nate with ordinary sandstone. These beds contain many characteristic 

 chalk fossils, such as Hippurites and other Rudistes, Echini tes, and 

 various univalve and bivalve shells. Hitherto Belemnites and Am- 

 monites have not been observed. 



The series of formations in this district closes with horizontally stra- 

 tified masses of loose conglomerates and nagelflue. It is remarkable, 

 that among these conglomerates, which consist principally of pebbles 

 of hard sandstone with some of hornblende rock and of ferruginous 

 sandstone, limestone pebbles have scarce ever been found, although 

 that rock is so extensively developed in the neighbouring hills. 



[J. C. M.] 



Researches on the Physical Geography of the Alps, in relation 

 to the phenomena of Glaciers, to Geology, Meteorology, 

 and the Geography of Plants (Untersuclmngen iiber die phy- 

 sikalische Geographic tier Alpen, u. s. w.), by Hermann Schla- 

 gintweit and Adolph Schlagintweit. Leipsic. Imper. 8vo. 

 pp. 600. With 71 Woodcuts and 18 Lithographic plates and 

 maps. 



This work is the result of investigations carried on in the Central 

 Alps, and in which the authors were mutually engaged for several 

 years. It is divisible into four chief parts : — 1. Researches on Gla- 

 ciers ; 2. Geological Researches ; 3. Meteorological Researches ; and 

 4. Researches on Botany and the Geography of Plants. 



The first part gives the researches on the important physical phe- 

 nomena of the great ice-masses of the glaciers in seven chapters ; 

 treating particularly of the characters and properties of ice, of the 

 highest portion of glaciers [firn-meer], of the topography of the gla- 

 ciers, their structure, movement, oscillation, and waste. In the second, 

 geological, part, we have five chapters, on the hypsometrical deter- 

 minations of the Alps, on the formation of the valleys and the form 

 of the mountain-chains in the Alps, on the geology of the Oetz valley 

 and the Tauern, the formation and temperature of springs, the iso- 

 geothermal lines of the Alps, and on the alteration of the surface by 

 erosion and weathering. The third part contains five chapters on me- 

 teorological phenomena ; the ranges of temperature, atmospheric 

 pressure and winds, moisture of the atmosphere, optical phenomena 

 of the atmosphere, and the proportion of carbonic acid contained in 

 it. In the fourth part, relating to botanical researches, the manifold 

 connexion of vegetation with climatal conditions is considered ; and 

 the effect of altitude in limiting vegetation, the periodic phenomena 

 of vegetation, the influence of altitude on the thickness of the annual 

 rings in coniferous plants, and the peculiar conditions of the vegeta- 

 tion of the Upper Alps, in the Upper Moll district, are comprised in 

 four chapters. 



