22 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



regarded as being probably contemporaneous with the great Alpine 

 disturbances which brought the strata into a fan-like position, and 

 might prove an argument in favour of a single great post-tertiary 

 uprise of the Alps, were not this hypothesis completely refuted by the 

 position of the neogene deposits in the north-eastern Alpine district. 

 Here also mica-schist overlies the lias-limestone (Lienz in Tyrol), — 

 the Vienna-Sandstone dips exclusively southward, seemingly beneath 

 the Alpine Limestone, — Nummulitic sandstones dip beneath the Hip- 

 puritic limestones ; but the neogene deposits rest in horizontal un- 

 disturbed strata on all these older form.atioris. 



Slight disturbances of the neogene strata occur in some few loca- 

 lities, but are not to be paralleled with the grand and nearly general 

 disturbances to which the older rocks have been subjected. The 

 disturbed condition and vertical faults of the neogene beds increase 

 in frequenc}'- and importance from East to Y/est. The second up- 

 heaval of the Alps, the traces of M'hich are scarcely visible in the 

 north-eastern part of the chain, but very considerable in the west- 

 ern portion, may therefore be supposed to have occasioned still 

 greater disturbances at its western extremity, so that the uplift of 

 the Swiss molasse may be conveniently identified with ^l. Stur's 

 post-tertiary upheaval. Similar oscillations of the earth's crust have 

 been observed in North America by Prof. Dana. 



In a paper on the influence of the soil on the distribution of plants, 

 which M. Stur published some time since in the Proceedings of the 

 Vienna Academy*, he expressed his opinion that the physical geo- 

 graphy of the Alps, and the successive development of vegetable life 

 upon their surface, cannot be satisfactorily understood without an exact 

 idea of the extent and the external constitution of this mountain- 

 chain during the Neogene and Diluvial periods. 



[Count M.] 



On the Hollow Vf.bbl.i:s found near Lauretta. 

 By Director Haidinger. 



[Proceedings Imp. Geol. Instit. Vienna, July 24, 1856.] 



These hollow pebbles were found by M. Haidinger near Lauretta, 

 in the Leitha Mountains, on the Austro-Hungarian Frontier, and 

 first described by him in August 1841. They are calcareous, of 

 a dark-grey colour, much worn, from } of an inch to 3 inches in 

 diameter, and are conglomerated by means of a hard yellowish-white 

 calcareous cement. Beds of this conglomerate, alternating con- 

 formably with sandstone and plastic clay, are not uncommon in 

 the tertiary limestone, known as *' Leitha-limestone " bv the Vienna 

 geologists, around Lauretta. At one place M. von 'Zepharovich 

 found three of these beds, one above another, separated by different 

 strata. Besides these calcareous pebbles, the conglomerate includes 



* Sitzimgsberichte, vol. xx. p. 71. See also Annals Nat. Hist. ser. 2, vol. xviii. 

 p. 520.~Edit. 



