72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Channel to such hmits as it has now, and the final opening of a 

 communication with the North Sea, must have taken place subse- 

 quently to this same brickearth-period. 



On the Geology o/" Varna, and the Neighbouring parts of 

 Bulgaria. By T. Spratt, Capt. R.N., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



[Read June 18, 1856.] 



Varna and the Coasts to the South. — The Varna district seems 

 to consist generally of two distinct formations : viz. 1st, a series of 

 yellowish and grey deposits, composed of calcareous sandstone and 

 sandy marls, with sometimes an oolitic bed interstratified ; 2ndly, a 

 series of arenaceous marls, sands, and fine gravel, of a reddish-brown 

 and greyish colour, which overlie the former, and occupy the tops 

 of the ridges, or occur on the sides of some of the valleys. 



The lower group is marine and appears to be of the Eocene Ter- 

 tiary age ; it attains a thickness of fully 1000 feet in some localities. 

 The overlying red sands and marls are seldom found in greater thick- 

 ness than from 100 to 200 feet in the immediate vicinity of Varna ; 

 having been no doubt much denuded from that district. On the 

 coast, however, at Cape Aspro, about fifteen miles south of Varna, 

 and ten miles north of Cape Emeneh, the termination of the Balkan, 

 the cliffs show a section of the two series of deposits together, as seen 

 in the following sketch (fig. 1). A local disturbance has here tilted 



Fig. 1. — Section at Cape Aspro. 



S. Cape Aspro. N. 



a. Brown and reddish sandstones and marls (Freshwater). 



b. White calcareous sandstones and marls (Marine). 



the two formations to a greater inclination than usual, and exposed 

 a thickness of fully 1000 feet of the red sand and marls. 



This coast-section shows that the two groups are unconformable ; 

 the lower, and evidently marine series, dipping to the southward, at 

 an angle of nearly 30° ; whilst the red sands and marls, which are 

 probably partially, if not wholly, of freshwater origin, overlie them 

 at an angle of about 20°. 



Cape Aspro is so called from the whitish colour of the cliffs that 

 commence at this cape and extend northward along the whole coast 

 to Cape Kaliakra and Cape Shablur, and present everywhere the 

 yellowish white marls and calcareous strata ; varying, however, in 

 some few localities, by the more marly and less calcareous nature 

 of some of the beds ; but all lying nearly horizontal. 



To the southward of Cape Aspro, the disturbances in the deposits 

 increase with the increasing elevation of the ridges, as they approach 

 the Balkan : and the sections exhibit occasionally some of the shales 

 and schistose rocks of an older formation ; until at Cape Emeneh, 



