ANNIVEESAKY ADDRESS OF THE PKESIDENT. Ixili 



of Petit Coeur in the Tarantaise. The locality is a very limited one, 

 and the phenomena cannot be explained by inversion of the strata, 

 or by a turning over of the different beds. After describing the prin- 

 cipal facts, he shows that the anomalous position of these beds, 

 which had caused so much difference of opinion amongst geologists, 

 was owing to two faults, one general and the other local, and to the 

 slipping or sliding-in of overlying beds into the cavities thus caused, 

 and so bringing the Upper Lias beds in immediate contact with the 

 Coal-measures, and even the underlying crystalline rocks. 



Neither time nor space would allow me to go through the numer- 

 ous works which the industry of the German geologists have pro- 

 duced on those portions of the secondary series, the Triassic and 

 Liassic formations, which are so extensively developed in the Alps 

 and in Germany itself. It would require volumes to do justice to 

 them all. I must therefore confine myself to a slight allusion to 

 some of the more interesting memoirs which have come under my 

 notice ; and in doing this 1 feel it is impossible to withhold an 

 expression of admiration at the zeal and energy with which these 

 investigations have been pursued in so many different parts of Ger- 

 many. It is not that one eminent palaeontologist has directed his 

 attention to this subject, but a whole army of eager and enthusiastic 

 explorers, animated by the recent rapid accumulation of facts, by 

 the discovery of new fossils, and by the greater accuracy with which 

 the different fossil-bearing strata have been distinguished, seem to 

 have come forth from every corner of Germany, each taking up some 

 special branch, and in the end almost overwhelming us with the 

 mass of accumulated results. 



Professor Giimbel has published a very important memoir on the 

 geological conditions of the Triassic district of Pranconia. After 

 describing the topographical features of the district under conside- 

 ration, he gives a general account of all its geological features, 

 showing that the crystalline rocks (Urgebirgs-felsarten) of the Oden- 

 wald form the basis of the whole system. The Silurian, Devonian, 

 and Carboniferous systems are wanting in this district. The con- 

 glomerates of the Dyas (Rothtodtliegendes) rest immediately on the 

 Urgebirge and form the basis of the Triassic formation (Bunter Sand- 

 stein, Muschelkalk, and Keuper), which fills up the whole region 

 between the crystalline rocks of the Odenwald and the Hercynian 

 mountain-system. It is well known that all the rocks of the Pran- 

 conian Alps rest upon this Triassic surface, and form a kind of insular 

 continent in the Keuper district. 



The different beds and rocks throughout this region, with their 

 characteristic fossils, are then carefully described ; after which the 

 author makes the following general remarks : — " The long period of 

 time during which the massive rocks of the Jurassic formation were 

 gradually deposited in eastern Pranconi a, passed away without leav- 

 ing any additions to the rock-formations in the greater part of the 

 western district. Western Pranconia was a continent of dry land 

 during this period of the formation of the earth's crust. Not until 

 the Tertiary period did this district again share in those changes and 



