1/4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 13, 



Vienna, an excellent ichthyologist, showed me indeed a small round 

 fish with a heterocerque tail from Perledo near Laico, the same tract 

 in which the small saurian occurs, and which might lead to the 

 belief in the existence of a still older deposit in that region. He 

 also pointed out to me specimens of ichthyolites from bituminous 

 schists associated with the limestones between Adelsberg and Zirck- 

 nitz in Illyria, which are chiefly of the genera Lepidotus and Palseo- 

 niscus, and much resemble the fishes I formerly collected at Seefeld* 

 in the North Tyrol, the strata of which, according to the present 

 view of their succession, must be the equivalents of the lias and lower 

 oolite. In Illyria, however, the above fishes are associated with a 

 species of the genus Thr]/ssops, which has not yet been found at 

 Seefeld, but occurs at Solenhofen. These fishes indicate then the 

 existence of Jurassic rocks in that region. 



In tracing the lias and Jura limestone through Savoy, I shnll say 

 little more than that, in following out the researches of M. Elie de 

 Beaumont, Professor Sismonda has detected the presence of a suffi- 

 cient number of fossils to characterise the liasso-jurassic and overlying 

 Oxfordian groups, fossils of both of which are to be seen in the mu- 

 seums of Turin and Chambery. 



Rocks containing Belemnites and Coal Plants in the Savoy Alps. 

 — I may now allude to the much-agitated question of the plants of 

 carboniferous speciesf being associated with belemnites. M. Elie de 

 Beaumont and M. Sismonda contend that these plants (which are 

 doTibtlpss true carboriferous species) are interstratified with belem- 

 nites, notably at Petit Cceur in the Tarentaise, and that in many 

 other parts of Savoy zones of similar plants occur, which are, in truth, 

 prolongations of liassic or Jurassic deposits, in which the well-known 

 animal remains of those periods prevail. This opinion has met with 

 antagonists, and the greater number of geologists, being naturally 

 averse to what they consider an anomalous collocation, the recognition 

 of which is attended with great difficulties, are disposed to receive 

 with favour every effort which has been made to explain the phaeno- 

 menon by reversal or plication. Until I \isited the Savoy Alps, I 

 confess that I was of this number ; for the theoretical sections of 

 M. Favre of Geneva, showing the possible curvature of beds the ends 

 of which have been truncated, and the opinions at which other geo- 

 logists had arrived, that a true representation of the carboniferous 

 system existed in the Savoy Alps, and that the plants of Petit Cccur 

 formed a part of it, had strongly predisposed me to coincide with such 

 views. After an examination, however, of the case of Petit Coeur, 

 I know not how to arrive at any other conclusion than that adopted 

 by M. de Beaumont and M. Sismonda, the grounds for which I now 

 proceed to explain. 



* See Phil. Mag. and Ann. of Philosophy, 1829, vol. vi. p. 36. At that time, long 

 before the days of Agassiz, I suggested that these fish might be of the age of the 

 Thuringian schists. They are however clearly of liasso-jurassic age. 



•f- Mr. Bunbury has recently shown that all the species of plants from these 

 localities, examined ly him at Turin, are true carboniferous forms— thus confirm- 

 ing the dictum of M. Adolphe Brongniart (Journ, Geol. Soc. vol. v. p. 130). 



