160 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 13, 



fossils were connected with both the older tertiary and the younger 

 secondary deposits ; an opinion from which I entirely recede. I 

 am now persuaded that no form of the genus Niumnulina (D'Orb.) 

 occurs in the Alps in beds below the surface of the chalk, or its 

 equivalent. Geologists must recollect, however, that at the period 

 when we wrote, the development of the lower portion of the cretaceous 

 system in Southern Europe had not even been commenced. The 

 Neocomian formation was unknown, and no one dreamt that the thick 

 outer coat of the subcrystalline alpine limestone, then considered to be 

 of the age of the upper oolite, would prove to be the equivalent of the 

 slightly coherent beds of sand and shale known as English " Lower 

 GreensandV The few secondary fossils we could then detect, in any 

 rocks above strata containing liassic and Jurassic species, were typical 

 of the cretaceous epoch, and thus, putting aside dislocations, we sup- 

 posed that the anomalous group called " flysch," containing so much 

 greensand, and which as a whole was interpolated between the sup- 

 posed Jurassic rocks and the known tertiary deposits, might be of the 

 same age as other sandy marls and calcareous bands, often also 

 charged with green-earth, in which we found cretaceous fossils. 

 Portions of the deposits of Gosau, as well as those on the northern 

 flank of the Untersberg, had also to a great extent the characters of 

 " flysch," and hence we supposed that such patches as contained 

 cretaceous fossils were simply " oases " in a great secondary greensand 

 succession. 



I have now satisfied myself, that the great mass of the so-called 

 flysch is the superior portion of the nummulitic " Terrain," and that 

 the lowest beds with nummulites are completely above all those rocks 

 which are the equivalents of the white chalk of northern Europe. In 

 demonstrating this by absolute sections, I will further show, that 

 between the representative of the chalk and the lowest nummulite 

 limestone, there are beds, sometimes of considerable dimensions, which, 

 whether marls, green sandstones, or impure limestone, exhibit that 

 true transition I formerly insisted on as occurring between the secon- 

 dary and tertiary rocks of the Alps. 



The application of this classification to the Alps, Apennines and 

 Carpathians, in all of which similar nummulitic limestones and sand- 

 stones occur, is loudly called for, seeing the discordant opinions 

 which prevail respecting such deposits. In the valuable general 

 map of Von Dechen, for example, the zone which is occupied by the 

 flysch in the Eastern Alps is placed as the equivalent of the lower 

 cretaceous rocks, without any representative of the chalk ; and in de- 

 fining the secondary boundary through Switzerland, the cretaceous 

 system is omitted, the molasse being represented as in contact with 

 the Jurassic rocks. Yet this is the very region in which a most 

 copious development of the whole cretaceous system occurs, overlaid 

 by vast thicknesses of nummulite limestone and flysch. In the same 

 map the deposits of the Vicentine are classed as lower tertiary, whilst 

 they are, in truth, a peculiarly shelly portion only, of the same vast 

 series of the supracretaceous rocks which embraces the nummulite 

 limestone and flysch. 



