ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 185 



corals, echinoderms, fish and saurians, and those of the same series in 

 Europe ; out of sixty shells collected by Mr. Lyell, five seem to be 

 quite identical with European species, while several others approach 

 very near to and may be the same as European ; fifteen may be 

 regarded as good geographical representatives of well-known cre- 

 taceous fossils, belonging for the most part to beds above the gault. 

 This amount of correspondence is not small, when it is considered 

 that the part of the United States where these cretaceous beds occur 

 is from 3000 to 4000 miles distant from the chalk of Central and 

 Northern Europe, and that there is a difference of 10° in the lati- 

 tude of the places compared on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. 

 " Some of the species common to the opposite sides of the Atlantic 

 are those which in Europe have the greatest vertical range, and 

 which might therefore be expected to recur in distant parts of the 

 globe." He concludes with the following remarks : — " We learn 

 from the facts mentioned that the marine fauna, whether vertebrate 

 or invertebrate, testaceous or zoophytic, was divided at the remote 

 period under consideration, as it is now, into distinct geographical 

 provinces, although the geologist may everywhere recognise the 

 cretaceous type, Avhether in Europe or America, and I might add 

 India. This peculiar type exhibits the preponderating influence of a 

 vast combination of circumstances prevailing at one period through- 

 out the globe — circumstances dependent on the state of the physical 

 geography, climate, and the organic world in the period immediately 

 preceding, together with a variety of other conditions." 



Tertiary Deposits, 



The tertiary deposits of Russia, exclusive of a few patches of very 

 recent age, are most expanded in the southern parts of the empire, 

 those of Eocene and of Miocene ages both occurring. The former 

 has in many parts the very same structure and contents as the Lon- 

 don clay. Sections are seen of beds equivalent to the calcaire gros- 

 sier and London clay in connexion with strata referred to the upper 

 part of the cretaceous system. In the neighbourhood of Saratof, on 

 the Lower Volga, there occurs a sandy calcareous grit, subordinate 

 to clay and sand, of a concretionary structure, undistinguishable 

 from the Bognor rocks in Sussex, and containing the same shells. 

 The authors appear inclined to believe that an insensible gradation 

 may be traced from the upper cretaceous into the tertiary beds. 



The Miocene deposits are of far greater extent than the Eocene. 

 They are the extension of the great basins of Vienna and Hungary, 

 and are spread over Volhynia, Podolia and Bessarabia, stretching 

 to the Black Sea and the country north of Odessa, where they are 

 covered by deposits of a more modern age. They have a close 

 affinity to the deposits of the sub-Apennines and of Bordeaux, and 

 like beds of the same age in Styria and Hungary, contain extensive 

 oolitic beds, undistinguishable, lithologically, from many English and 

 French varieties of the Jurassic group. 



Marine Pliocene deposits are wanting, but the Miocene arc covered 

 by the vast deposit of argillaceous limestone already referred to as 



