ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Cxiu 



appear to Lave varied from marine to brackish, and then from brackish 

 to fresh water ; land being adjacent, as abundant specimens of Hehx 

 occur in the upper portion of the series. The freshwater origin of 

 the Dobrudcha sands and marls is further confirmed by the Kusten- 

 jeh section, where a fragment of the tusk of an elephant was found 

 in the lower bed of grey marl which rests upon a yellowish fossili- 

 ferous limestone, probably a member of the nummulitic series, and 

 is overlaid by about 70 feet of clays, marls, and gj^pseous bauds, the 

 lower of which contain casts of Cyclas or Cyrena. 



Capt. Spratt then points out the remarkable resemblance between 

 the red marly cliff Avhich extends from Balbek, in the Crimea, 

 to Eupatoria, and the second, or more recent, group of deposits 

 on the coast of Bulgaria, and doubts, therefore, the supposed 

 Miocene origin of the former. The general resemblance between 

 these deposits and those which overlie the Eocene freshwater beds 

 of Samos and Eubaa, as well as the freshwater deposits which, in the 

 Thracian Peninsula, attain a thickness of 500 or 600 feet, naturally 

 leads to the belief that they are of Pliocene date. There are also 

 Post-tertiary deposits and drifts of a very late period, but Capt. 

 Spratt explains that he has taken every care in separatuig the flu- 

 viatile and lacustrine deposits he describes, from any member of the 

 northern drift. Another interesting remark is, that a submarine 

 connexion between the mountain ranges of the Balkan and Taurus 

 can be traced across the Black Sea, along the edge of a remarkable 

 submarine plateau or steppe ; and, connecting this fact with the 

 great extent of these freshwater deposits, and with the Aralo-Caspian 

 deposits, we see the evidence of a sudden alteration in the physical 

 conditions of the country at a very recent epoch, so recent, indeed, 

 as almost to touch upon the existing epoch. Although I shall have 

 to notice it again, I may conclude these remarks by stating that 

 Capt, Spratt discovered the bones of a snake in the freshwater 

 deposits of the iMacedonian coast at Thessalonica. 



Captain Spratt contributed also a second paper to the Society ; but, 

 as he is still pursuing his inquiries into the nature of the Tertiaries 

 of this portion of the earth, 1 will reserve my further observations 

 until I shall be able to give a view of the value of his labours. 

 I will, however, take this opportunity of recording the completion 

 of a Geological Map of IMalta by the Earl of Ducie. That noble- 

 man based his own researches on those of Capt. Spratt, and it is 

 gratif3ring to learn that he fully confirms their accuracy, thougii he 

 does not entirely concur with him as to the propriety of establishing 

 so many subdivisions in the tertiary deposits of ^Malta. 



I will now notice that part of the paper of my friend Signor 

 Cocchi, on the igneous and sedimentary rocks of Tuscany, which 

 refers to the Tertiary formations, as it is of importance to keep in 

 view the extraordinary difference between the physical conditions 

 of deposits of the same age on the borders of the Mediterranean 

 and on our own coasts. We have, for example, seen that the Ter- 

 tiary deposits commence with us by the group of the London Basin, 

 and that there exists therefore a great thickness of deposits of a very 



VOL. XIII. h 



