1848. J MURCHISON ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ALPS. 305 



jive degrees of latitude and near one hundred degrees of longitude, its 

 northernmost ridge on the north flank of the Carpathians being clearly 

 identifiable with its southernmost known limb in Cutch, and its western 

 masses in Spain and Morocco being similar to those of the Brahma- 

 pootra, we at once see the vast importance which attaches to a right 

 understanding of its true place in the geological series. And this 

 assimilation of distant deposits is effected, it will be remembered, in 

 spite of great local diversities of lithological and mineral character. 

 The black subcrystalline schists and limestones of the summits of the 

 Vallaisan and Savoyard Alps, with their Cerithia and Melanise, and 

 the black fish-slates of Glarus ; the hard, calcareous, green sandstones 

 of the x\lps of Bern, of the four cantons, and of Bavaria, are all proved 

 by their fossils and order of superposition to have been formed during 

 the same geological period as the white limestones, marls and sandstones 

 of Monte Bolca and the Vicentine, and by zoological inference, at the 

 same time as similar rocks in Egypt and Hindostan. Nay more, 

 we see in the Alps enormous thicknesses of overlying " flysch " and 

 " macigno," which having often the aspect of the oldest secondary 

 or even of transition rocks, are not of higher antiquity than our 

 unconsolidated London clay and Bagshot sands ! 



In coming to my present opinion I regret to be compelled to dissent 

 from my eminent friend M. Elie de Beaumont ; for even in the last 

 modification of his opinions, he views the "terrain a nummulites'* 

 as a member of the cretaceous rocks. In one essential point indeed, 

 when he states that complete researches will probably make known 

 passages or transitions between all conterminous formations, he gives 

 the great value of his sanction to opinions I have long held and pub- 

 lished*. I rejoice that he pointedly adverts to the error of those 

 who believe in general dislocations, or revolutions which have neatly 

 separated one great group of rocks and their imbedded animals from 

 another ; and that stating how all disruptions are local in reference 

 to the surface of the globe, he admits with me, that even in two 

 formations unconformable to each other, some of the same organic 

 remains have been found to exist. Apparently, however, not suffi- 

 ciently acquainted with the presence in the Alps of a full represen- 

 tative of the chalk, and believing that the nummulitic series there 

 rests upon strata of the age of the greensand, he supposes that the 

 nummulitic group and flysch of that chain may answer to the upper 

 part of the cretaceous system, and may also fill up the interval so 

 frequently observable in Northern Europe, between the surface of the 

 chalk and the plastic clay. But he must forgive me when I state 

 my belief, that this view cannot now stand in the face of the clearly- 

 ascertained succession which has been pointed out. If it were 

 valid, then the nummulitic rocks and flysch or "terrain epicretace" 

 would surely somewhere be overlaid by a zoological representative of 

 the calcaire grossier ; whereas in every country where it is known, 

 the nummulitic and flysch group is surmounted, for the most part 

 unconformably, by deposits with miocene or pliocene shells. Even if 



* See Silurian System and Russia in l^xxro^^e, passim. 



