IxXXviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Herr v. Hauer observes, that the results obtained by Homes and 

 Siiss in their respective investigations entirely agree with those 

 vsrhich he had obtained from the study of the Cephalopoda. Not 

 one of the species in all these different classes had hitherto been found 

 beyond the Alps. They are principally entirely new forms, and 

 only a very few of them were known from the Saint Cascian beds. 

 There are no less than twelve new species of Ammonites, the whole 

 number previously known from the Hallstadt beds being twenty- 

 five. 



This result appears the less extraordinary since the true geological 

 position of the Hallstadt beds has been more exactly determined. 

 They form, according to von Hauer, an upper member of the triassic 

 series which has never yet been found except in the Alps, and which 

 must be considered as about contemporary with the Keuper, so poor 

 in marine remains, and which is altogether without Cephalopods. 

 The character of the fauna of the Hallstadt beds also corresponds 

 well with this age. It fills up the gap which appeared to exist be- 

 tween the fauna of the palaeozoic and that of the secondary forma- 

 tions, a gap which was in a great measure owing to the scarcity of 

 organic remains in the trias formations beyond the Alps. It includes 

 forms of the palseozoic type, as e. g. numerous Orthoceratites, Ammo- 

 nites, with smooth sides and lobes, completely evolved Nautilus, &c., 

 combined vnth Ammonites of the families of the Ceratites, Arietes, 

 and Heterophylla, and Nautilus of the Jurassic type. Dr. Homes 

 makes the same observation respecting the remarkable combination of 

 palaeozoic and Jurassic forms with reference to the Gasteropoda and 

 Acephala found in these Hallstadt beds. 



The same volume also contains an account of the Chelonian remains 

 from the Austrian tertiary deposits by Dr. Karl Peters. The specimens 

 described belong to the genera Trionyx, EmySy and Chelydra, and Dr. 

 Peters states that in the description of them he has in general followed 

 the views of the author of the ' Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia 

 of the London Clay.' These Chelonian remains are all derived from 

 the Neogene deposits of Austria ; but Dr. Peters observes, that since 

 he had completed his memoir he has received from the brown-coal 

 of Siverich a fragment of a new species of Trionyx, the first species 

 of tortoise yet found in the eocene formations of Austria. It comes 

 from the same coal-beds as those in which the Anthracotherium dalma- 

 tinum of Herm. v. Meyer was found, and which belong to the nummu- 

 litic series. Herr. v. Hauer has communicated to the same Academy a 

 notice of some fossils found in the Dolomite of Monte Salvatore, near 

 Lugano, which confirm the impression that this Dolomite and the 

 underlying Verrucano belong to the Trias formation. We owe the 

 discovery of these fossils to the Abbe Giuseppe Stabile of Lugano, 

 and his brother. Many of them are true Muschelkalk fossils, and 

 point, as Herr v. Hauer observes, to the great analogy between these 

 beds and those of the Trias formation of the northern Alps, and 

 more particularly identify them with the Hallstadt and Guttenstein 

 beds. 



I will only further mention that Dr. Frederic Rolle has communicated 



