SPRATT — BULGARIA. 79 



phant's tusk, and a few feet above it an indurated stratum of gypseous 

 bands, with impressions of a shell much like a Cyclas or CyreMa, 

 and apparently such as 1 found in the Dardanelles deposits. They 

 are not drifted shells, but were tranquilly imbedded in the bed of the 

 lake in which they lived. This band passes into beds of grey-reddish 

 and greyish-white porous earthy marls and clay, more stratified by 

 colour than by change of mineral character. Fig. 4 is a section of 

 these deposits. 



I wish it to be understood (continues Capt. Spratt) that I am not 

 confounding any member of the " northern drift " with fluviatile or 

 lacustrine deposits, although I think that has been frequently done 

 in describing some of these late freshwater formations in which 

 gravels are found. 



But that there are evidences of a " drift " of a very late period I 

 am aware ; and I think the formation at Gallipoli (Sea of Marmora) 

 to be an example. This is a bed of coarse gravel cemented into a 

 hard conglomerate, in which the valves of a large species of Dreissena 

 and a Cardium are abundantly intermixed ; the mass being more than 

 100 feet thick. There is another fragment of it over Nazara Point, 

 near the Dardanelles Castles, and capping the freshwater marls and 

 sands which dip to the eastward, whilst the mass of conglomerate 

 dips to the south-west. 



On the north shore of the Sea of Marmora the " drift" is shown 

 by a mass of cemented valves of Driessena, intermixed with only a 

 few small pebbles. 



T. S. October 1, 1856.] 



Comparison of the Geological Features of Bulgaria and the 

 Crimea. — I merely give these facts from a hasty examination during 

 war ; and present a series of the fossils I procured to the Society. 

 Future researches, or the observations already made by others, but 

 which I have not had the opportunity or time to inquire into, may 

 perhaps explain the relative ages and peculiarities here touched upon. 



Taking, however, a general view of the geological facts here briefly 

 given, we have the secondary rocks of the Balkan terminating over 

 the shore of the Black Sea at an elevation of nearly 2000 feet, and, 

 with the formations lying to the north, presenting geological features 

 similar to those of the Crimea. For, extending from the roots of 

 the Balkan, we have the older marine Tertiaries inclining gradually 

 from them, and succeeded by a broad district composed of reddish 

 marls and sands, forming the Steppe of the Dobrudcha, as along the 

 north parts of the Crimea. There is a remarkable resemblance in 

 the red marly cliifs that extend from the Balbek in the Crimea, along 

 the whole coast to Eupatoria, and repose directly upon the old Ter- 

 tiary deposits of the Khersonese and Sevastopol, with the second 

 group of deposits on the coast of Bulgaria. I have examined these 

 deposits at Eupatoria, at Old Fort, at the Alma Heights, at the 

 Katcha, and on the north side of the Balbek, and was struck with 

 the similarity of their mineral character and with the absence of fos- 

 sils, as in those of the Dobrudcha. 



