76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The surface of the rock in the vicinity of these columnar masses 

 is, I observed, sometimes much spht into vertical cracks, causing 

 the portions denuded of soil to bear some resemblance to an open 

 pavement of flat slabs. 



The atmosphere and rain, probably, operating together in those 

 rents early exposed, w^earing down the sides and angles, and in- 

 creasing the openings, have finally left the hardest portions standing 

 as isolated columnar masses, or reduced to detached spherical no- 

 dules. The contained fossils have, from their greater hardness, re- 

 sisted the degradation, which probably was more chemical than 

 mechanical ; and the NunmtuUtes, so abundant in the stratum from 

 whence the columnar masses were derived, having thus become de- 

 tached, may be gathered in great quantities at their bases. At the 

 small group of columns over Kepedjeh, this nummulitic sand is so 

 thickly strewed, together with rounded nodules of the limestone, as 

 to resemble the dry bed of a river, although situated upon the slope 

 and top of the ridge. 



Similar conditions exist in every group of the columnar rocks 

 that I saw in the neighbourhood : they are derived, as I before 

 noticed, from the uppermost remaining deposit of the Lower Marine 

 Tertiaries at this locality, which is, in the vicinity, immediately over- 

 laid by the reddish-brown sandy marls of the second series of deposits 

 which I have noticed. 



The rounded and apparently water-worn character of these co- 

 lumnar masses and nodules, and their existence on the surface of the 

 Marine Tertiaries, are suggestive of their having originated at so 

 early a period as the time intermediate between the two groups of 

 deposits, and during some moving condition of the covering waters 

 at that period. I am not prepared to deny this ; for it seems very 

 probable ; although my impressions on the spot were always favour- 

 able for an origin, degradation, and waste at a recent period, and in 

 fact now in process, under the atmospheric influence. 



But in support of their older origin, I am induced to mention a 

 curious fact, that seems to support this idea ; viz. the apparent 

 existence of a corresponding group of columnar rocks in the Bay of 

 Varna, which rise up in pinnacles from 5 to 8 and 9 feet above the 

 bottom. They were not discovered in sounding the bay until it 

 became crowded with our transports upon the preparation for the 

 Crimean expedition. No one at the locality was aware of their 

 existence, until the hawsers of an English transport and the chain- 

 cable of a French brig, anchored near the spot, were found entangled 

 at the bottom amongst what the French captain expressively called 

 "A group of columns ; " for the lead would not remain upon their 

 summits, but fall, as I myself proved, from 3^ fathoms into 5 fathoms, 

 the average depth around them. A diver sent down by me confirmed 

 the fact of their being elevated pinnacles of rock ; and not a wreck, 

 as might be imagined. 



This fact seems to suggest the occurrence of a group of columns 

 in the bay corresponding to those at Allahdyn : and thus, if the 

 former be identical in respect to the deposit with the latter (for they 



