ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ixiii 



Carpathian sandstones. It is remarked that, in such districts, where 

 the cretaceous series presents an arenaceous and earthy character, 

 and the nummuhtic rocks are absent, it is extremely difficult to draw 

 lines of separation between sandstones of secondary and tertiary age. 

 Sir Roderick considers that hence, under the term Carpathian sand- 

 stones, cretaceous and eocene deposits have been confounded, the 

 confusion not a little aided by the dislocated condition of the district. 

 We were next presented with a general view of the chief forma- 

 tions of the Apennines and Italy. In this Sir Roderick Murchison, 

 referring to the labours of General della Marmora in Sardinia as 

 showing the existence of Silurian rocks in that island, considers that 

 there is at present no evidence of older accumulations in Italy than 

 those found at La Spezia and in the adjoining district of the Massa 

 Carrara Mountains, or Apuan Alps as they have been termed. These 

 are referred to the age of the lower or Liasso- Jurassic division of the 

 Alpine limestones, and are noticed as covered by a limestone, which 

 from its fossils and frequent red colour is called ammonitico-rosso, and 

 considered to be equivalent to the Upper Alpine limestone or Ox- 

 fordian Jurassic series. Surmounting these deposits come the equi- 

 valents of the cretaceous series of our country, well-exhibited on 

 the flanks of the Venetian Alps in one direction and in the Nice di- 

 strict in another, and in their turn covered by the nummulitic accu- 

 mulations, observed by Sir Roderick twenty years since, to graduate 

 into the deposits beneath them in the sections presented near Asolo 

 and Bassano. He adverts to a recent description by M. Zigno of a 

 series of accumulations in the Euganeans from the Upper or Ox- 

 fordian Alpine limestone, through the cretaceous group, mcluding 

 the equivalent of the white chalk, to the nummulitic series, and re- 

 marks that in Liguria, Modena, Lucca and Tuscany, such evidence 

 of clear succession is absent, the rocks above the Oxfordian group in 

 those districts being singularly devoid of fossils, and the beds inter- 

 mediate between it and those of the miocene age assuming an arena- 

 ceous character, with the exception of certain flaggy limestones. 

 The nummulitic deposits are found at rare intervals, and chiefly 

 southward of Florence. Where they occur. Sir Roderick refers the 

 Macigno associated with or overlying them to eocene deposits, and 

 such rocks are stated to be undistinguishable from the Alpine flysch 

 and macigno. The thick Alberese limestones on which these deposits 

 rest, so well displayed in the Apennines between Bologna and Flo- 

 rence and in the northern part of the Tuscan Maremma, it is thought 

 may in part represent the chalk, the fucoids in these rocks, though 

 of the same species as those which overlie the nummulitic rocks of 

 the Alps, ranging from the lower chalk high up into the eocene de- 

 posits, and a hamite and one or two ammonites having been disco- 

 vered in these beds in Tuscany. Passing southwards into the Roman 

 States and Naples, the superposition of the nummulitic limestones, 

 with their associated fossils, to the hippuritic limestones, is seen in 

 the same succession as in the i\.lps and Carpathians. 



The Superga section, near Turin, is noticed as highly instructive, 

 9, coralline concretionary limestone forming its base, and being either 



