Ix PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



tions of the Alps especially, and tiie length of time during which such 

 examinations have been continued with differences of opinion and 

 varied results. 



After a notice of previous writers and a glance at the first removal 

 of masses of the Alps, by M. Brochant, from the so-called primary 

 to the transition series, and the still further removal of supposed very 

 ancient accumulations to the secondary series, including the creta- 

 ceous group, by Buckland, Brongniart, Yon Buch, Elie de Beaumont 

 and others, and adverting to his labours with Professor Sedgwick on 

 the Gosau deposits. Sir Roderick JMurchison notices the occurrence 

 of portions of Upper Silurian, Devonian and carboniferous rocks in 

 the eastern Alps, as determined by organic remains, giving an ac- 

 count of those seen by M. de Yerneuil and himself, and of the re- 

 searches of others respecting the same rocks. Proceeding to the 

 westward, evidence of these rocks ceases, and it is inferred that this 

 may have arisen from the greater metamorphic action to y.liich they 

 may have been exposed in that direction. ^Tiile no traces of the 

 Permian series have been detected in the area treated of, the trias, 

 including the muschelkalk, noticed by Yon Buch, Emmerich, Yon 

 Hauer and other geologists, reposes on the palaeozoic accumulations 

 above mentioned in the South Tyrol and Salzburg Alps. These de- 

 posits are not traceable in the Western Alps, it being inferred that 

 they are not recognizable there from metamorphic action, extended 

 through the palaeozoic deposits to them in that direction. Special 

 mention is made of the trias of the South Tyrol, and of Recoaro and 

 adjacent tracts. 



The Lower and Upper Alpine limestones are described under the 

 names of Liasso- Jurassic and Oxfordian Jurassic. The lower divi- 

 sion contains characteristic fossils. In the Yenetian, Tyrolese and 

 Milanese Alps, there are tracts in which the Giyphcca incurva, liassic 

 ammonites and small saurians have been found, and the same zone 

 has been traced by Studer, Elie de Beaumont, Sismonda and other 

 geologists in S\\itzerland and the eastern iVlps. In following this 

 band of limestones, the light-coloured beds of the eastern Alps, often 

 dolomitic, become, for the most part, dark and even black on the 

 westward. From the mode of occurrence of the dolomite amid the 

 limestones of the eastern Alps, Sir Roderick agrees with Yon Buch 

 in considering it a modification or metamorphism of the original de- 

 posit ; and he also refers the great masses of gypsum to the same 

 action, carbonate of lime having been converted into the sulphate. 

 In illustration of this view he points to the effects now produced by 

 the thermal waters of Aix, in Savoy, the sulphuric acid contained in 

 the vapoui's from which converts the limestone of the fissure through 

 which they rise into sulphate of lime, and supposes that when the 

 Alps were uplifted, the more copious discharge of such waters and 

 gases would produce the changes required. 



The beds containing belemnites alternating with coal-measure 

 plants, of which mention has been above made, were examined by 

 Sir Roderick, and are noticed in connection wdth the Lower Alpine 

 or Liasso- Jurassic limestones, the blackness of which in their course 



