TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES 



GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



On the Distribution of the Inzersdorf or Congerian Strata in the 

 Austrian Empire. By Fr. Ritter von Hauer. 



[Imp. G-eol. Instit. Vienna, Jahrbuch, xi. (1860) p. 1, &c.] 



Highly interesting results have been obtained by the recent investi- 

 gation of tbe freshwater deposits of South-eastern Europe, undertaken 

 by British officers, especially by Captain Spratt, chiefly during the 

 Crimean war. Captain Spratt had previously given notices of the 

 freshwater deposits near Smyrna, and in the Isles of Samos and 

 Euboea*, followed by his papers "on the geology of Varna and the 

 neighbouring parts of Bulgaria," " on the freshwater deposits of 

 Euboea, the coast of Greece, and Saloniki," " on the geology of the 

 North-east part of the Dobrutcha," and " on the freshwater deposits 

 of the Levant f." 



In 1858 also Mr. W. H. Baily described a series of organic re- 

 mains brought from the Crimea by Captain C. F. Cockburn, R.A., 

 with a note by the latter " on the geology of the neighbourhood of 

 Sevastopol," &c.J 



The facts stated in these memoirs, and derived either by the ob- 

 servations of the authors themselves, or on trustworthy authority, are 

 unanimous in proving the existence of freshwater deposits, of the late 

 Tortiary period, throughout S.E. Europe, on the islands and the 

 coasts of the Grecian Archipelago, along the coasts of Thrace and 

 Macedonia, on the Western coasts of the Black Sea, and in the 

 Crimea, and likewise on the opposite coast of Asia Minor. These 

 deposits are considered by Capt. Spratt to indicate the existence of 

 an enormous freshwater lake, or of a series of freshwater basins, 

 during a period immediately preceding the present state of things, so 

 that at that time inland fresh waters filled up the hollows at present 

 for the most part occupied by the salt water of the ^Egean, the Sea 

 of Marmora, and the Black Sea. 



Capt. Spratt had enounced these views (although somewhat modi- 

 fied by the then existing incertitude as to the age of these isolated 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. i. p. 150, and vol. iii. p. 65 & p. 67. 



+ Ibid. vol. xiii. p. 72 & p. 177, and vol. xiv. p. 203 & p. 212. 



\ Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 133 & p. 161. This memoir has been followed by another 

 paper by Mr. Baily, descriptive of Crimean Fossils, in the Journ. Roy. Dublin 

 Soe. for January and April 1859, p. 233, &<•.. with .T plates. 



VOL. XVI. PART II. D 



