SZAB(5. SOUTH-EAST OF EUROPE. 3 



Beyond an enormous tract of marshy land which lies upon the left 

 bank of the Danube, and upon the opposite side of that river, but 

 many miles off, precipitous walls of Loess are again met with of 

 the same character as before, the connecting portions having occupied 

 the place where the Danube now flows. At Csernavoda*, the valley 

 through which the railway passes was formed by erosion ; and the 

 surface-configuration of its side suggests that it must once have been 

 filled with water, and that this was the water of the Danube itself, 

 towards which the valley opens. This conjecture is rendered almost 

 certain by the examination of the bottom, which is covered by an 

 immense quantity of shells, all belonging to species now living in 

 the Danube and on its banks (Tichogonia Ghemnitzii, Fer., Mela- 

 nopsis acicularis, Fer., Neritina Danubialis, Ziegl., Paludina achatina, 

 Brug., Melanopsis Esperi, Fer., <kc). 



Besides this, there is another place in the same valley which con- 

 tains some of these Mollusca, and also remains of human art of a 

 more recent age, at a height of about 100 ft. above the level of the 

 Danube. These human remains consist of fragments of urns, roof- 

 tiles, bones of domestic animals, and, what is more significant than 

 all, a piece of laminated metal which proved to be lead. 



The systems of plains forming the steppes or the large valleys are 

 then treated of; and in concluding this portion of his subject the 

 author describes the present shores of the Black Sea, to which the 

 pleistocene deposits are continued, stating that the Loess forms 

 the shore on the Kilia arm, where it constitutes cliffs of from 42 to 

 50 feet above the sea-level, but that towards Odessa the cliffs rise 

 gradually to a height of more than 200 feet, of which the upper 

 portion is typical Loess, while the lower consists of the well-known 

 Neogene limestone. 



On the St. George arm, portions of the secondary rocks of the 

 Dobrudscha Mountains are visible as far as the banks of the Danube ; 

 but in places a mass of Loess, forming a range of hills, occurs ; and 

 at Kustendje the cliffs are composed in some places entirely of Loess, 

 in others partly of it and partly, of older formations. The latter 

 rocks gradually crop out towards the Balkan range, and in the same 

 ratio the Loess thins out ; so that at the Cape of Kalakvi (Gulgrud), 

 near Varna, the tertiary limestone forms the surface and the entire 

 cliff; this limestone is probably the Leithakalk of the Vienna 

 geologists. It may be therefore inferred that the Loess forming the 

 sea- shore obeys, in thinning out, the same law as that of the plains : 

 in other words, it thins out only towards the mountains, and above 

 a certain level large masses of it are never found ; but towards the 

 Black Sea it does not thin out at all. The interruption of it on the 

 shore must have been, of course, posterior to the time of its formation. 

 Commencing from Odessa, and proceeding as far as the mouth of the 

 Danube, and again from here to Kustendje and the Bay of Varna, 

 the Loess is never found covered by a marine deposit. 



From the above observations the author infers that the water 



* The Danube station of the Danube and Black Sea Railway. 



B2 



