1856.] SPRATT — FRESHWATER DEPOSITS OF EUBCEA, ETC. 183 



Also over the " Scale " or Custom-house of Leftero Khori I found 

 similar deposits capping a ridge about 1 00 feet above the sea : in 

 these there was a Cardium intermixed. Further down the coast, in 

 a cliff on the shore, I found several specimens of Helix similar to 

 the one procured at Livonati. 



Here also I found, on the flank of a ridge of undoubted freshwater 

 beds, about 30 feet of a very recent or post-tertiary deposit of marine 

 origin, with several existing shells in it, viz. Cerithium, Cardium^ 

 Spondylus, &c. 



The promontory of Karabournou which juts out from the eastern 

 coast, opposite to the mouth of the Vardar, shows in its cliff about 

 100 feet of reddish-grey marls and sands, similar to the Leftero 

 Khori deposits. They lie horizontally, are capped by a bed of 

 gravels and white sands, filling the hollows in the surface of the lower 

 group, from 1 to 1 2 feet in thickness, and are of a late and probably 

 marine origin. 



The cliffs surrounding the promontory present good sections of 

 the deposits ; but, although I examined them through a distance of 

 three or four miles, not a fossil shell was found to indicate positively 

 that the lower were of freshwater origin. But I was fortunate in 

 finding some fossil bones of a large animal, though much scattered 

 and broken. These were sent to Professor Forbes at the Museum 

 in Jermyn Street, with numerous vertebrae of a snake, found in the 

 marls at about one mile N.E. of the Cape. The vertebrae were 

 given to Professor Owen soon after they reached the Museum, and 

 were, I believe, considered to be rare and interesting*. 



In concluding this account of the freshwater deposits on the 

 western side of the Archipelago, I shall draw attention to the fact 

 that no marine deposits but such as are evidently of a very recent 

 date (post-Tertiary apparently) have been mentioned. No marine 

 formation of the earlier Tertiary ages, in fact, anywhere existing, to 

 my knowledge, in the northern division of the Archipelago, viz. that 

 which includes a line from the south end of Euboea to the coast of 

 Asia Minor at the Meander. 



I know of no marine strata of the Miocene age in this division ; 

 nor indeed any Eocene deposits, unless they are represented by the 

 older limestones and the usually associated shales and schists ; but 

 I have not been able to identify any of these as being Nummulitic ; 

 this group of rocks having Hippurites as the general characteristic 

 fossil in this division of the Archipelago, as far as I have examined. 



Thus it evidently appears, that, if not from the commencement, 

 at least from the early part of the Tertiary epoch down to a very 

 late period, a freshwater lake occupied the basin. The lake no 

 doubt had its margin extended up the valley of the Vardar, as ap- 

 pears from the freshwater deposits known to exist many miles up 



* Prof. Owen found that the portion of mammalian bone, from Salonika, which 

 was submitted to him, was not determinable. The Ophidian vertebrae above re- 

 ferred to were described by Prof. Owen in a paper read before the Society on 

 Jan. 7, 1857 (see further on, p. 196). — Edit. 



