258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 13, 



US, to believe that in those days the crust of the earth was affected 

 by forces of infinitely greater intensity than those which now pre- 

 vail. That the elevation, dislocation and apparent inversion of the 

 molasse was a sudden operation or catastrophe, is clearly demon- 

 strated, both by the physical relations of the strata of that age to 

 those which succeeded them, and by proofs of an immediate change 

 of climate, probably due to a great rise of new lands, and the 

 elevation to much higher altitudes of all the country which pre- 

 existed. In attestation of both these inferences, we see the ends 

 of the inclined, and often vertical beds of molasse, whose contents 

 bespeak a warm or Mediterranean climate, covered abruptly by hori- 

 zontal accumulations of ancient alluvia, the animals and vegetables 

 in which announce a climate little, if at all, different from that 

 of the present day. The extent to which these old water-worn 

 alluvia once filled up the valleys of the Alps, thereby indicating that 

 the chain was then of less altitude than at present — the formation 

 of ancient glaciers — the transport of huge erratic blocks to vast 

 distances, and the great and irregular elevations and deep denudations 

 which the whole area has undergone, are all phsenomena pertaining 

 to this most interesting chain, on which, though much has already 

 been said, I hoj^e at a future day to express my opinions. 



Part II. 



On the Cretaceous and Nummulitic Rocks of the Carpa- 

 thian Mountains. 



In 1843 I examined the northern flank of the Tatra group of the 

 Carpathian mountains with Professor Zeuschner, and although I 

 never published a detailed account of that survey, I gave the general 

 results of it in the work upon Russia and the Ural Mountains. I 

 then believed that all the Carpathian sandstones, as well as the fiysch 

 of the Alps, were of cretaceous age ; but I now present a section 

 (fig. 31) accompanied by explanations, to show, that whilst many of 

 these sandstones are of secondary age, there are others which, sur- 

 mounting true nummulitic eocene deposits, are clearly tertiary. This 

 section is therefore now brought forward, both to confirm what has 

 been stated in the preceding pages, and to extend and modify the 

 view which I previously entertained concerning the classification of 

 the formations on the flanks of the Carpathian mountains f. 



The lofty axis of the Tatra is occupied by granitic rocks, which on 

 their northern side are flanked, first by talc schists, and next by 

 hard quartzose and altered sandstones, concerning whose age I vd\\ 

 not speculate (see 1 & 2 of fig. 31). These rocks are surmounted 

 by great masses of hard subcrystalline limestone (3), often in a state 

 of marble, and with few traces of regular bedding. Near the iron 

 forges of Zagopane, these limestones are visibly stratified, plunging 

 to the north, and they there alternate with a schistose shale (3*) in 

 which the Terebratula biplicata occurs in abundance. Again, in the 

 turreted ridges called Muran (or the Wall) the limestones also dip to 

 f See Russia and the Ural Mountains, vol. i. p. 264. 



