208 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, [Dec. 13^ 



The Grypheea to which I have now so much alluded, is considered 

 by Mr. Morris, M. D'Archiac, and all the conchologists who have 

 examined and compared it since my return to England, to be the 

 G. vesicularis, a fossil of the upper chalk of England, and which in 

 the south of France is common to the white chalk and the lowest 

 nummulitic zone. It was either this species or its representative Gry- 

 phite, which Professor Sedgwick and myself collected at Matsee, north 

 of Salzburg in Austria, where it occurs in strata similar to those of the 

 Griinten and Fiihnern mountains, and where it is equally surmounted 

 by nummulitic limestones with large Echini and Pectens*. If then 

 we are guided by fossils, we ought to group this band or intermediate 

 bed (e) with the cretaceous system, although its beds have already 

 assumed to a great extent the lithological characters of the overlying 

 nummulitic greensands and flysch into which they make an imper- 

 ceptible transition. In the Fahnern mountain, indeed, the same 

 Gryphsea continues to pervade the ascending strata until it is asso- 

 ciated with nummulites; whilst in the Vicentine, another species of Gry- 

 phsea approaching to the G. columba, mounts, as is well known, into 

 strata in which not only nummulites, but many true eocene shells 

 occur. These Gryphites (perhaps two or more species) characterize, 

 therefore, the zone of transition between the secondary and tertiary 

 rocks of the Northern Alps. 



Numnmlite Rocks and '* FlyschJ"' — After a clear exhibition on 

 the sides of the torrents of several courses of the above-mentioned 

 strata with Gryphites, some of which lithologically resemble the 

 flysch above the nummulites, these beds {e, fig. 18), dipping 60° to 

 70° south-east, are seen to graduate conformably into another and 

 somewhat thicker band of limestone of deep ferruginous colour, which 

 is loaded with myriads of nummulites, grains of chlorite being abun- 

 dantly disseminated in it (/) . This is the lowest of the several well- 

 known zones of nummulitic iron ore of Sonthofen, and it is charged 

 with the large Nummulina millecaput and N. planospiim, the smaller 

 N. globosa, the large Echini with Crustacea {Cancer SontJiofensis)^ 

 Pectens, some Terebratulse, the Trochiis giganteus, etcf . On a 

 former occasion it was stated generally, that bands of nummulitic 

 limestone succeeded each other on the banks of the Starzlach, and 

 I would now simply observe, that the overlying schists, impure 

 limestone, and sandstones of the mountain {g) are referable to 

 the flysch, or are simply the continuation of one and the same series of 

 strata, however slightly they may be fossiliferous in their upper parts. 



* See Trans, Geol. Soc. Lond., New Series, vol. iii. p. 349. The Gryphsea of 

 Matsee is named G. expansa by Mr. J, Sowerby. Unluckily the true equivalents of 

 the chalk or limestone with Inocerami are not visible near Matsee. It is now 

 however my belief (though I have not re-examined the country) that all the exten- 

 sive mass of flysch or Vienna sandstone lying between Matsee, Mondsee, and the 

 walls of secondary' limestone on the south, is of lower tertiary age. 



t Trans. Geol. Soc, Nevi^ Series, vol. iii. p. 332. The genera are Pecten, Tere- 

 bratula, Spondylus, PUcatula, Astarte, Anomia, Isocardia, with large Serpulae, the 

 well-known large Echini, and the Cancer Sonthofensis. It is in fact the same 

 grcwp, most of the species being undescribed, as that which occurs all through the 

 Swiss Alps. 



