1848.] MURCHISON ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ALPS. 227 



by the existence of a great, conformable and continuous succession of 

 finely laminated strata, the deposit of which being clearly proved to 

 begin after the accumulation of the limestones with true chalk fossils, 

 has gone on uninterruptedly during long ages. The united group of 

 the nummulite limestone and flysch of the Swiss Alps, as well as the 

 great nummulitic and shelly accumulations of the Vicentine, are in- 

 deed more stupenduous monuments to mark the lapse of time than 

 any of the so-called eocene deposits in Northern Europe. This phae- 

 nomenon of a fuller eocene development, at least of all its lower part, 

 in Southern Europe, is quite consonant with the facts elicited by the 

 geologist. In Northern Europe a hiatus is very generally seen be- 

 tween the surface of the chalk and the lowest eocene, occasioned 

 doubtless by very considerable disturbance at that sera. In number- 

 less places the surface of the chalk has been abraded by the action of 

 tumultuous waves, and the strata have been dislocated before the 

 tertiary strata were accumulated thereon : not so originally in the 

 Alps. There, the submarine deposits having in many parts been 

 continuous throughout both periods, we are necessarily presented 

 (where subsequent dislocations have not obscured them) with a 

 grander series of strata. In regard to the enormous thickness of 

 '' flysch" which overlies the zone of nummulites and other recogni- 

 zable fossils, and in which very little of organic form, save fucoids and 

 a few fishes' teeth and scales, and an occasional cast of a shell, have 

 been detected, we can scarcely say more than that, from the inti- 

 mate association and intercalation of these rocks with nummulites, 

 we must presume that they were simply the copious accumulations of 

 a deep sea of that sera in which animal life was scarce. It is however 

 to be noted, that the well-preserved ichthyolites of the Glarus slates, 

 which unquestionably occur in one of the lower bands of flysch, are 

 highly important evidences, and not less so that they are accompanied 

 by the bones of a bird and a tortoise. The fishes of Monte Bolca, 

 their position and their association with nummulites, enjoin still more 

 forcibly the same conclusion. The fucoids of this deposit are indeed 

 of little value in geological classification. For although in the Swiss 

 and Bavarian Alps they mark, as far as I know, the upper portion of 

 the group we are now considering, there are forms said to be similar 

 in the Italian Alps which occur in the grey or lower chalk beneath 

 the red scaglia. And this is just what we might expect ; it being 

 almost an established law in the distribution of organic remains, that 

 the higher the organization the more neatly defined is its stratigra- 

 phical horizon. Vegetables of so low a class as fucoids, and so 

 adapted for enduring physical changes, may therefore have continued 

 to live on in spite of those grand mutations which may have often 

 interfered with animal life. 



It may be objected that the " flysch" of the North-western and 

 Austrian Alps is not obviously displayed in the same mineral form 

 on the flanks of the Southern and Venetian Alps. But even there 

 the yellowish and green sandstone, and bands of marl and schistose 

 limestone which are associated with the nummulite zone, may well 

 be viewed as representatives of the North Alpine flysch. It is, in 



