Ixxxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



3rd. The Palaeozoic deposits of Cappadocia and of the Bosphorus. 

 Having myself had an opportunity of exploring the geology of some 

 parts of Asia Minor, I am the more anxious to lay before you a short 

 notice of the results of M. de Tchihatcheff's inquiries, which may be 

 considered as supplementary to his paper published in 1850. 



In the first portion of his memoir, M. de Tchihatcheff, starting from 

 Karaman, a large town of Lycaonia, sixty miles S.E. of Iconium, 

 describes an interesting and extensive tertiary deposit abounding in 

 fossils, and which he attributes to the Miocene period. This formation 

 commences within six or eight miles south of Karaman, and has been 

 traced, more or less developed, to the coast of the Mediterranean. In 

 fact, commencing on the northern flank of the Taurus, it is found in 

 thin horizontal beds amongst the highest peaks of the mountain chain, 

 capping with its perfectly level deposits the highly inclined lime- 

 stones, marls, and schists of the cretaceous rocks, whilst on the 

 southern flanks of the Taurus it constitutes to an enormous thickness 

 the broken and rugged country which intervenes between it and the 

 sea. In an easterly direction he has traced it for upwards of seventy 

 leagues, occupying almost the whole country between the southern 

 crest of the Taurus and the Mediterranean. In the rich diluvial 

 plain of Tarsus and Adana it is found in river-sections under the 

 diluvium, whilst nearer the mountains it is itself occasionally under- 

 laid by tertiaries of an older epoch, viz. the nummulitic limestone 

 of the Eocene period. The occurrence of this extensive Miocene 

 deposit on the shores of the Mediterranean is a fact of considerable 

 interest, agreeing as it does with the observations made by Prof. 

 Forbes on the shores of Lycia, who, in the 2nd vol. of his ' Travels 

 in Asia Minor,' describes the marine tertiaries met with at four loca- 

 lities. The principal of these is at Saaret, near Antiphellus, where 

 he and his companions collected thirty-four species of MoUusca in 

 good preservation. From a careful examination of these species, tfav 

 late President had already come to the conclusion that these Lycian 

 tertiaries belonged to the Miocene age, and were contemporaneous 

 with the formations of Bordeaux and of Touraine, and with the 

 Miocene tertiaries of Italy. There is, however, one very remarkable 

 difference between the fossils found by Prof. Forbes and those of 

 M. de Tchihatcheff, in the different proportions of univalves and 

 bivalves. Out of the thirty-four species of Prof. Forbes, five only 

 are bivalves and twenty-nine univalves. M. de Tchihatcheff, on the 

 other hand, out of forty-one species found in the valley of Kudene, 

 gives only twelve univalves, the remainder, with the exception of one 

 Echinoderm, being bivalves. 



It is well known that highly fossiliferous beds of the Pliocene age 

 occur in the islands of the ^gean, on the shores of the Morea, and 

 at Lixouri in the island of Cephalonia, besides other places on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. It is therefore to be hoped that with 

 the assistance of these Miocene formations in the Eastern Mediterra- 

 nean, some future geologist may be enabled to make out the exact 

 relations between the Pliocene and Miocene and earlier tertiary 

 deposits. 



