﻿SAVI AND MENEGHINI ON THE VERRUCANO. 



107 



productive of other fossils of still greater importance, namely, of 

 animal remains, belonging to the same period. 



The excavation of two galleries, running in a S.W.-N.E. direction 

 at two different levels, has rendered it possible for us to recognize 

 the true disposition of the strata in that part of the mountain, and 

 the relative position of the fossils above referred to and presently to 

 be noticed. 



A rough examination of the surface of the ground, encumbered as 

 it is with rocky debris, enables us to perceive that in general the 

 strata strike S.E.-N.W., and dip to the N.E. The mining-works, 

 however, above-mentioned indicate that the strata have a dome-like 

 curvature, the curve presenting its convexity to the N.E., and com- 

 prehending in its concavity the greater mass of the anthracitiferous 

 and cinnabar-bearing deposit. From this dome-like arrangement it 

 follows that in the central part of this deposit the superior strata are 

 turned over somewhat to the S.W. 



It was in the first portion of the upper gallery, which is driven 

 near the vertex of the dome, that the bed rich in vegetable impres- 

 sions was met with ; but, suddenly passing upwards, it was left be- 

 hind. The same bed was again encountered in this working by 

 means of a descending gallery, which, at 39 bracchia [ab3ut 7 4^ Eng. 

 feet] distance from the opening, is directed towards the plane of the 

 lower gallery, to the N.W., and thus traverses, in that direction, the 

 curved strata, and consequently is continued from the lower towards 

 the upper beds, in which the latter gallery is now being driven at a 

 lower level. 



In excavating the first portion of this second gallery the fossils, 

 that we shall presently enumerate, were met with. It has been pre- 

 viously mentioned that the upper strata consist of great beds of 

 quartzose anagenite [coarse greywacke], which repose on siliceo-talcose 

 schists, of a greyish black colour, more or less compact, alternating 

 with deposits that are somewhat fine and interrupted with anthracite. 

 The uppermost of these schists have a greater compactness and a 

 texture so coarse as to resemble a psammite ; the lower beds are of 

 a finer grain, and might be taken for simple argillaceous schists. 

 The latter contain the vegetable impressions ; whilst the animal re- 

 mains are found in the former. Judging from the appearance of the 

 rocks on the surface of the mountain, other beds of anagenite might 

 be expected to underlie the schists with vegetable remains, but as yet 

 the subterranean works have not come upon them. 



The most abundant of the animal remains of this locality are those 

 of the Cyathocrinite, undermentioned; the others, excepting those 

 of the few Brachiopoda, Bryozoaria, and Polypi/era, all belong to 

 the Lamellibranchiate Molluscs, and consequently to a Class, in which 

 the difficulty of recognizing and determining the species is greater 

 than in any other, especially with such poor remains as are here 

 afforded to us — frequently incomplete impressions, and imbedded in 

 rock excessively altered by metamorphic action. From the very nu- 

 merous shells, therefore, of the casts of which, in some parts of the 

 fossiliferous stratum, the rock, one might say, is almost entirely com- 



VOL. VII. PART II. K 



