ANNITERSAEY ADDEESS OP THE PRESIDEIS^T. Ixix 



gonian formation consists chiefly of a white compact limestone. In 

 its fracture it is slightly crystalline, sometimes white, but more fre- 

 quently of a greyish hue, and except by its fossils is often hardly to 

 be distinguished from the Nummulitic limestone. Wherever the 

 Urgonian beds are broken through in the anticlinal saddles, a mass 

 of brown schists rises up below them. The author attributes them 

 to the Neocomian formation on account of the fossils they con- 

 tain, as Belemnites pistiliformis, Blainv., B. dilatatus, Blainv., Ostrea 

 rectangularis, Eom., a, ■ Hamite, and a Terebratula resembling T. 

 pseudojurensis, Leym ; at the same time he is not prepared to say 

 that other older beds may not also be associated with the Neocomian. 



To the N. or N.W. of the Oldenhorn rises the Col de Pillon, 

 separated by a fault which follows the line of the river Dard to a 

 well known spot called Sur Pillon. The beds to the north of this fault 

 consist of alternating bands of gypsum and Corgneule or Rauchwacke, 

 which, in accordance with the views of Prof. A. Favre, the author 

 considers as belonging to the Triassic group. He has traced them 

 to a considerable distance from the Plan des Isles to the eastward. 

 It is difficult to make out their stratification ; M. Benevier suspects 

 that they represent repeated undulations of the same beds. They 

 are in part concealed under erratic deposits, and appear to be over- 

 lain by the sandstones, schists, and conglomerates of Palette du 

 Mont, the highest point of the mountain-mass to the north, and 

 which is laid down as Elysch. No fossils have been found in these 

 beds, nor in the gypsum or Corgneide of the Col de Pillon. The 

 latter is generally more or less cellular, and the gypsum varies from 

 white to grey. 



Amongst the valuable works which have been published in Switzer- 

 land, I may also mention that of W. A. Ooster on the " Petrifications 

 remarquables des Alpes Suisses," in which he gives a full synopsis 

 of all the fossil Echinoderms which have hitherto been discovered in 

 the Alps of Switzerland. The work is illustrated by twenty-nine 

 plates of fossils, and professes to give a description of all the species 

 hitherto known, from the Infraliassic beds upwards to the Tertiary 

 formations, amounting in the whole to 193 species, which are thus 

 distributed: — Trias 3, Infralias 4, Lias 4, Jurassic 27, Cretaceous 

 93, and Tertiary Q2 species. 



In the last year's volume of the ' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Geolo- 

 gischen Gesellshaft ' will be found an interesting account of a visit 

 to the copper-mines of Monte Catini in Tuscany, and to some other 

 places in their neighbourhood, by Herr von Eath, of Bonn. The 

 mineralogical and physical features of the country are well pour- 

 trayed, as well as the different geological formations. The sterile 

 aspect of the Pliocene clay-hills, on which every attempt at culti- 

 vation has failed, is graphically described, and we have also a full 

 account of the Borax Lagoons (Lagoni) of Monte Cerboli. 



There is, however, one passage in this memoir which has surprised 

 me. In describing the well-known statuary marble of Carrara, which 

 belongs to the Lias formation, the author says that in the Apuan Alps 

 the. finest statuary marble occurs in large lenticular masses, which 



