1848.] MURCHISON ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ALPS. 219 



the hands of few continental readers, I now reproduce them, with some 

 additions, as woodcuts*, (figs. 22, 23). When these sections near 



Fig. 23. 



Asolo. 



Plains of Venice. 



o a b c d d e (/') f f g A 



o. Oxfordian. Cretaceous. Eocene. Miocene. Pliocene. 



(Sub-Apennine.) 



Bassano were described, the new nomenclature of Sir C. Lyell had not 

 been announced, and the groups of shells which there overlie the chalk 

 were simply termed lower and upper tertiary. These two classes of ter- 

 tiary rocks were shown by me to have been upheaved in parallel lines, 

 and also partially to expose a transition from one to the other. And 

 now that I have revisited the localities, and have examined a much 

 wider range of the Alps, I see more than ever the value of these sec- 

 tions ; for as the nummulitic zone is there conformably placed be- 

 tween what I am certain is the true equivalent of the chalk, and a 

 superior zone in which younger tertiary shells occur, the zone so in- 

 tercalated, and which contains so many true older tertiary forms, must 

 be the representative of the eocene. Nay more, the highly inclined 

 position of the outer or younger tertiary zone would, as I formerly 

 stated, seem to indicate that one of the last great upheavals of the 

 Alps {redressemeni) took place after the accumulation of the sub- 

 Apennine formation. I do not by any means wish to imply that the 

 same elevation which raised the chalk and eocene deposits also raised 

 the younger tertiary deposits. On the contrary, I believe that the 

 latter were thrown up subsequently, but in the same direction as the 

 adjacent older deposits f. 



It has already been stated, that a thick mass of compact cream- 

 coloured limestone, with flints and ammonites, called " biancone," 

 now proved by its fossils to be of neocomian age («), reposes on 

 Jurassic rocks (o), and is surmounted by the whole mass of the scaglia. 

 This scaglia (<:/), containing in parts Inocerami, Terebratulse and 

 Ananchytes ovatus, and being interposed between the neocomian 

 and the group of nummulite rocks with tertiary fossils (/, ^), is de- 

 monstrated, like the " sewer-kalk " of Switzerland, to be the equiva- 

 lent of the chalk. In the headlands between Recoaro on the north 



* My last \nsit to Bassano, Possagno and Asolo was made with the leading mem- 

 bers of tlie Geological Section of the Venetian Meeting of the *' Scienziati Italiani," 

 to which I have before alluded. Those who will be at the trouble of consulting 

 ray original sections as published in the Phil. Magazine (vol. v. June 1829, p. 401, 

 pi. 5) and those now produced, will perceive that there is nothing essential in the 

 one which is not in the other. The chief alteration is in respect to the flexure or 

 fracture of the cretaceous rocks near Bassano before they come into contact with 

 the nummulitic zone. 



t Although upon the small scale the younger tertiary are drawn conformable 

 to the older in figures 22 and 23, there are parts of the intervening tract between 

 Bassano and Possagno where the intermediate sandstones are broken and reversed. 

 Close research may detect an interval between the older and younger tertiary. 



