20 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



M. E. Sismonda referred all these groups to the Eocene, consider- 

 ing the middle one as the equivalent of the Eocene of the Paris 

 Basin. M. Pareto*, however, clearly showed a separation between 

 the Elysch and the " Calcaires a Fucoides " on the one part, and the 

 npper Nnmmulitic zone on the other ; there is also an incontestable 

 relation between the true Miocene and this upper zone, which over- 

 lies, at Sassello and at Carcare, lignites with Cyrena Brongniarti, 

 Bast. (C. C07ivexa, Brong.), and Cerithium margaritaceum, Brocc, 

 and which he considers the equivalent of the lignites of Cadibona. 



Erom this it results that the great Nummulitic system of the 

 Alps and Northern Italy presents three groups of different ages, 

 namely, the Nummulitic formations (1) of Nice, (2) of the High Alps, 

 and (3) of Bormida, of which the two lower groups are Eocene, and 

 the upper one Miocene. 



Two or three years ago the author procured a series of fossils from 

 the Yicentin, and while grouping them according to their localities, 

 was struck with the difference and the independence of the faunae so 

 separated. Erom an examination of these fossils he has concluded 

 that in the Yicentin there are different beds corresponding to the 

 different stages of the Tertiary series of Paris, namely : — 



1. The beds of Priabona (Yalle di Boro) are the equivalents of 

 the Biarritz, that is of the Lower, Eocene. To this level also belong, 

 on the one side Bolca, and on the other Brandola, and some other 

 localities of Monte Berici, and probably also Yal Kovina, and Monte- 

 glosso, near Bassano, to the north-east of Salcedo. 



2. San Giovanni Ilarione and San Pietro Mussolino are synchro- 

 nous with the " Calcaire Grossier Inferieur." 



3. Yillagrande, near Eonca, is contemporaneous with the "calcaire 

 grossier superieur," including, perhaps, the " sables de Beauchamp." 



4. Castel Gomberto (Monte Grumi, San Yalentino), Montecchio 

 maggiore (la Trinita), Monte Carloto near Monteviale, Monte Pos- 

 tale, and, further north, Salcedo to the north of Bregauze, and 

 Sangonini near Monte Sumano, and to the north-east Schio, cor- 

 respond exactly to the horizon of Gaas and the lower part of the 

 " Sables de Eontainebleau." 



There is between Eonca and Castel-Gomberto a considerable gap, 

 which is filled up in the Alps by the limestones with Nummulites 

 striata and N. contorta, the Elysch, and the " Calcaire a Eucoides." 

 These deposits, then, become synchronous with the gypsum, and re- 

 present the Upper Eocene. The system of the valley of Bormida 

 presents a remarkable admixture of the fossils of the Lower Miocene 

 of Castel-Gomberto, and of the " Sables de Eontainebleau" with the 

 middle Miocene fossils of Touraine and of the Superga. This system 

 is, then, posterior to that of Castel-Gomberto, and as it is anterior to 

 that of the Superga, it must be placed upon the level of the " Cal- 

 caire de Beauce," of which it constitutes the marine equivalent. 



The author then gives it as his opinion that the mountain masses 

 to the north, in the Yicentin and the Yeronais, and to the south, in 

 the Ligurian Apennines, which form the great basin of the Po, have 

 been during the Tertiary period subjected to an oscillatory move- 

 ment, which alternately elevated the northern and depressed the 

 * Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 2^ Ser., tome xii. p. 370. 



