200 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 13, 



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still loftier Hoher Sentis and the high tracts 

 of Appenzell ; a district which is rendered 

 classical in geology by the recent labours of 

 M. Arnold Escher de Linth. We have there 

 not only that series which has been already 

 so much dwelt upon, from a low horizon in 

 the Jura limestones through the neocomian 

 to the cretaceous series including the inoce- 

 ramus limestone, but also a very complete 

 exhibition of nummulite rock and flysch. 

 Seeing that M. Escher had so fully made 

 himself master of all the dislocations as well 

 as all the regular successions both of the 

 plateau of Wildhaus and of the Hoher Sentis, 

 I could only pretend to offer one, I trust not 

 unimportant addition to his valuable contri- 

 butions, by bringing to his notice a band 

 between the inoceramus and nummulite lime- 

 stones, which I consider to be of value in de- 

 monstrating a lithological transition from the 

 cretaceous system, properly so defined, to that 

 which overlies it. I also urged him to adopt 

 my method of classifying the nummulitic and 

 flysch rocks as lower tertiary, and no longer 

 to include them in the cretaceous series*. 



In travelling from Mells near Sargans to 



Wallenstadt and Wesen, a clear ascending 



order of the strata is visible, from the 



, *'Sernft" conglomerate (the most ancient 



rock of the region) at Mells (fig. 14). This 



by reference to his well-filled note-book, that this 

 would be found the grandest and clearest of all the 

 Swiss sections in explaining the true overlying rela- 

 tions of the flysch and nummulites to the cretaceous 

 rocks. 



* In the tabular view of his memoir entitled *Ge- 

 birgskunde,' appended to the description of the can- 

 ton Glarus by Professor Heer, M. Escher gives the fol- 

 lowing names in ascending order of all the strata of the 

 *' Kreide-bildungen": — 1. Spatangus kalk (Studer) 

 or Lower Neocomian. 2. Schratten kalk or Upper 

 Neocomian. 3. Turriliten-EtageorGault. 4. Sewer- 

 kalk or chalk. 5. Nummuliten Etage. 6. Flysch 

 and Dachschiefer von Plattenberg. 



-f- Although this diagram, from the pencil of 

 M. Escher, exhibits a thin course of it only, the zone 

 of gault or upper greensand exists in full force around 

 the Sentis. In the valley of the Rhine, and extend- 

 ing to Eichberg, it appears in insulated hummocks 

 charged with Turrilites, Inoceramus sulcatus and 

 other fossils, which with many forms gathered from 

 the different overlying rocks around the Hoher Sentis, 

 Prof. Briinner and myself examined in the rich mu- 

 seum of the Rev. Mr. Rechsteiner of Eichberg. 



