302 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DcC. 13, 



To the very decisive opinion of M. Ewald of Berlin respecting the 

 true tertiary character of the fossils of the Vicentine recorded in this 

 memoir, I may add, that in a paper read before the Geological Sec- 

 tion at Venice, he demonstrated that certain multilocular bodies in 

 the hippurite limestone of Berre, near Marseilles, though resembling 

 nummulites, were, in fact, quite distinct from them, both in structure 

 and in the absence of the lenticular form. Abandoning his old opi- 

 nions, like myself, M. Boue admits that as a whole the nummulites 

 must be ranged in the eocene group, and he now the better under- 

 stands why in certain parts of Turkey the miocene and younger 

 tertiary at once succeed to immmulite rocks. It has indeed been 

 stated by M. Constant Prevost, that nummulites occur with hippu- 

 rites in the limestones of Cape Passaro in Sicily. That nummulite 

 limestones immediately cover hippurite limestone in Italy, is a fact 

 on which I have dilated ; but whether the relations be the same in 

 Sicily I cannot of course decide, not having been able to visit the spot. 

 M. Coquand, whilst classing with the cretaceous rocks the nummulitic 

 limestone and macigno of Morocco, shows at the same time, that the 

 latter everywhere surmount the hippurite limestone ; and this state- 

 ment leads me to believe, that the general succession is the same in 

 Africa as in Italy and in the Alps. 



In casting our eyes eastward to the grand region of Northern 

 Russia, we see how the deposits above the chalk preserve the type 

 of our Northern Europe, and how in following them to the Carpa- 

 thians and the Crimsea, they are found to assume the southern type* 

 The sections of the nummulitic rocks of the south coast of the Crimsea, 

 whether by M. Dubois or by M. de Verneuil, completely establish the 

 fact, that the great mass of nummulitic limestone, with its Ostrea 

 gigantea and other eocene fossils, is clearly superposed to the chalk. 

 M. Dubois thinks, indeed, that one species of Nummulina there de- 

 scends into the rock with true chalk fossils. But even if this be so, 

 and that a true nummulite should also coexist with the uppermost 

 hippurite rock of Cape Passaro in Sicily, it will only prove that the 

 genus was called into existence a little earlier in those latitudes and 

 longitudes than in the Alps and Apennines, whilst at the same time 

 it would offer an additional proof of that very transition between the 

 rocks called secondary and tertiary on which I have dwelt. However 

 this may be, the facts remain the same, in relation to the great masses 

 of nummulites that characterize the eocene of Southern Europe, 

 which I have described. These, I repeat, are invariably supracre- 

 taceous ; the nummulites being associated with a profusion of other 

 animal remains of true tertiary character *. 



* The superposition of true nummulites to the cretaceous rocks of the Astu- 

 rias is announced to me by M. de Verneuil whilst these pages are passing through 

 the press. The limestones and sandstones of that province which are charged 

 with hippurites and radioUtes, contain also abundance of orbitotit^s-. The latter 

 (which have been mistaken for nummulites) are fairly intercalated in the cre- 

 taceous system, and are surmounted by a yellowish limestone with spatangi, which 

 may be the equivalent of the white chalk. This cretaceous group is distinctly over- 

 laid by limestone abounding in true nummulites, which dips under sandstone and 

 sands. This nummulitic band contains Ostrea gigantea, Conoclypus conaideuSy 



