Vol. 60.] LATER FORMATIONS SURROUNDING THE DARDANELLES. 259 



Prof, de Launay remarks, with respect to these Sarmatic and 

 Levantine deposits, that there is so much confusion between suc- 

 cessive palaeontologists, as to make him think that they have mixed 

 up Pontian formations, like those of Mitylene, with the Sarmatic 

 horizons (6, p. 240). It must be allowed that there is some cause tor 

 this opinion, but the recent discovery, or rather re-discovery, for they 

 are mentioned by Strabo (22, § 58), of bituminous and naphtha- 

 bearing beds, tends to confirm the assignment of Sarmatic age to 

 nearly all the strata along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, 

 marked as Levantine in F. von Hochstetter's map. 



Naphtha has been found in the following localities : — On the 

 north-western slope of the Tekfur Dagh, near Rodosto ; on the south- 

 eastern slope of the Tekfur Dagh, along the Marmora shore from 

 Ganos to Sarkeui ; and at Balouk-keui, near Feredjik in Thrace, 

 where there is a thickness of about 20 feet of naphtha-sand, dipping 

 25° south-eastward. A bed of hard limestone-breccia, 3 feet thick, 

 cemented by bitumen and dipping 50° south-eastward, has lately 

 been discovered on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, near 

 Dohan Asian. All the beds of naphtha and bitumen as yet traced 

 in this neighbourhood bear a strong resemblance to those of the 

 Sarmatic petroleum-district of Bustenar and Cosmina, in Rumania, 

 and the harder portions of the sandstones form similar globular 

 concretions, often 3 feet in diameter, in both localities. 



The naphtha-sands along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora 

 are directly overlain by the marine Sarmatic (Mactra-) limestones and 

 marls, which stretch as a coastal belt about 2 miles wide and 30 miles 

 long, from Kalamitza on the east, nearly to the Dardanelles, and 

 form a fringing border to the freshwater sands and clays. These 

 beds have a general slight south-easterly dip, and disappear beneath 

 the sea-level between Kalamitza and Myriophyto, while towards 

 the south-west they are overlain near Gallipoli by Upper Pliocene 

 deposits. They reappear in Kalo Nero Bay, forming the upper beds 

 which border the Dardanelles there. 



In my previous paper I suggested that the naphtha-bearing beds 

 near Milos were probably Pliocene (9, p. 156) ; but, since I have found 

 il/rtc£ra-limestone at Heraklitza overlying similar beds, I see no reason 

 for dissociating the strata at the two localities, as, although the indi- 

 vidual beds are too broken up to trace, yet the series as a whole is 

 continuous, and I am therefore now of opinion that the naphtha- 

 bearing strata at Milos and Hora are Sarmatic. 



At the south-eastern corner of Imbros, I found that the pro- 

 montory ofMegalai Kephalai consists of a projection about 

 2 miles long and half a mile wide, averaging 100 feet in height (fig. 4, 

 p. 260), convex to the south-east, and united to the main portion 

 of the island by sand-ridges 1| miles long, enclosing the large salt- 

 lagoon already mentioned (p. 253). The formation consists of soft 

 horizontal sands, clays, and marls, with a harder sandstone-bed 

 at the summit, and is generally light in colour. I could find no 

 fossils, but the appearance of the beds is identical with that of the 



