294 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 22, 



which extended over the greater part of northern France, Belgium, 

 Holland, and the north of Germany. The nucleus of the European 

 Continent was then but a group of detached rocky islands, some of 

 them consisting of long mountain-ridges or backbones, indicating the 

 line of subsequent mountain-chains, and more or less connected by 

 submerged reefs with each other or with other masses of land which 

 appeared above the surface of the water. That a considerable por- 

 tion of the Alpine chain has been elevated at a comparatively recent 

 tertiary period, we know from the late investigations, amongst others, 

 of Sir R. I. Murchison, whose elaborate paper, on the Geological 

 structure of the Alps, Apennines, and Carpathians, not only points 

 out the extraordinary disturbances which have occurred in the Alps, 

 but shows that the earlier tertiary formations, the nummulitic lime- 

 stone and the " Flysch," have been so tilted as to assume not only a 

 vertical, but even an inverted position, and that, while they show a 

 thickness of more than 8000 feet, thus proving the great length of 

 time during which their deposition was taking place, they have been 

 raised to the height of many thousand feet above the level of the 

 sea. But this is not all : the same remarks apply to the Nagelfluhe 

 and the Molasse formation, also exceeding 6000 or 8000 feet in thick- 

 ness, and of a more recent date ; so recent indeed, that Sir Roderick 

 Murchison does not hesitate to refer them to the older Pliocene age ; 

 and yet they are described as having, both on the northern and southern 

 flanks of the Alps, been raised into a vertical, and, in some places, 

 even an inverted position. Thus, admitting even the Molasse to be 

 of a more recent period than the Mayence beds, we have here suffi- 

 cient evidence of a great portion of the North of Italy, the Alpine 

 district, and even the Northern parts of Switzerland, having been 

 covered by the waters of the sea, not only during the earliest, but 

 during the most recent period of the tertiary epoch, leaving only the 

 highest portion of the mountain-peaks as islands. 



Again, to the north, we have evidence of considerable elevation and 

 disturbance, although, perhaps, not to the same extent ; nor can we 

 be at a loss to ascertain some at least of the causes which have pro- 

 duced these results. The volcanic outbursts, attributable to the ter- 

 tiary period, which abound in the greater part of the western and 

 central portions of Germany, point out to us the causes of these disturb- 

 ances. They belong, however, to different periods ; consequently the 

 results they have produced are local. But it is not only with phseno- 

 mena of elevation that we have to do ; evidence of depression is also 

 there, and that is exactly what we should expect. Elevation in one 

 spot is in most cases, if not always, accompanied by depression in 

 another. The very fact of the enormous thickness to which the ter- 

 tiary formations of the Alps have been accumulated, is a convincing 

 proof, that, contemporaneously with their deposition, subsidence must 

 also have been going on, or they could never have attained to such a 

 thickness. The eruptive phaenomena of the Eifel belonging to 

 various ages, the basaltic outbursts of the Westerwald, the Fichtel- 

 gebirge, and the Wetterau have all contributed to bring about those 



