the Western Part of Asia Minor. 5 



3. Tertiary marine deposits. 



4. Tertiary lacustrine deposits. 



5. Modern aqueous deposits, 



B. — Igneous Rocks. 



1. Granitic rocks. 



2. Greenstone, and older trap rocks. 



3. Trachytic and newer trap rocks. 



4. Modern volcanic rocks. 



A. — Sedimentary Rocks. 



§ 1. Micaceous Schist and Marble. (See PI. III. figs. 1 to 8, and Sketches 12 and 13 ; 



also PI. II.) 



This series occupies a very important place in Asia Minor, constituting the 

 'greater portion of the mountain-chains which intersect the country*. It consists 

 principally of micaceous schist, with which are associated beds of white or bluish 

 crystalline limestone and stratified quartz-rock. The latter deposits seem to occur 

 in no determinate order, but are interstratified with the micaceous schist, into 

 which they often pass imperceptibly. Clay-slate is of very rare occurrence in 

 this group of rocks, and we saw but few instances of slaty cleavage distinct from 

 the stratification. Veins of white quartz are as frequent as in similar rocks of most 

 other countries. The formation is very uniform in its characters, and the list of 

 minerals which we found in it, is very scanty. On the whole, this group of semi- 

 crystalline deposits bears much analogy to the gneiss and mica-schists of the Scotch 

 Highlands, and may therefore, in the absence of definite evidence as to age, be re- 

 ferred provisionally to the primary or transition epoch. 



The crystalline marbles of this formation are very generally dispersed over the countryf . Some- 

 times they are pure white, but more commonly they are striped bluish grey in the lines of stratification, 



bably intervene in age between the schistose rocks and the Hippurite limestone. As they have not 

 been noticed to the south of the sea of Marmora, we have omitted them in the above list. Fossiliferous 

 rocks of this early age are unknown (as far as we are aware) in the whole circuit of the Mediterranean 

 basin ; and Constantinople may therefore be supposed to form the southern limit of the great geological 

 basin of Northern Europe, throughout which these protozoic rocks are abundant. — H. E. S. 



* Their elevation, however, appears to have taken place at very different periods ; for though by far 

 the most considerable portions were elevated into the present mountain-chains at periods of remote 

 activity, and by the agency of granitic action, yet Mr. Hamilton observed many places along the coast, 

 where these rocks had been elevated by outbursts of trachytic rocks, and at periods probably subsequent 

 to the deposition of the cretaceous formation. 



f Although the marbles of this country are in general associated with the mica-schist, yet it is possi- 

 ble, that in some cases the\ may be altered rocks of a more recent date. 



