244 Mr. Lyell on the Cretaceous and Tertiary 



in company with Dr. Forchhammer, and was fortunate enough to find him 

 disengaged in the spring of that year, and willing to conduct me to the sec- 

 tions which he had described. 



Baltic Boulder Formation. 



That part of Denmark which we passed over between Copenhagen and 

 Moen consists of what many geologists would term " diluvium/' but for which 

 Dr. Forchhammer proposes the name of the " Baltic boulder formation/' 

 because it incloses, together with boulders of granite and other rocks, huge 

 erratic blocks, evidently transported from a distance, and which may be called 

 " Baltic," because they are chiefly confined to countries bordering- that 

 inland sea, as for example, to Sweden, Finland, Northern Germany, and 

 Denmark. 



This " drift," or " boulder formation," rests in some places immediately on 

 the chalk, as in the districts of Seeland and Miien, of which I am more par- 

 ticularly to speak in this notice ; but in many parts of Denmark, other tertiary 

 strata are interposed between it and the chalk. In these cases, the boulder 

 formation and other tertiary deposits exactly recall the " diluvium" and crag 

 strata in the cliffs of Norfolk and Suffolk. The identity, indeed, in the ap- 

 pearance and composition of the masses which cover the fossiliferous crag in 

 parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, with those seen in Holstein and other parts of 

 Denmark, is so perfect that it can only be fully appreciated by those who 

 have seen both. The accumulations of stratified and unstratified materials 

 are in both countries the counterparts of each other. 



No natural sections of considerable depth, are seen in these formations in 

 the interior of Denmark, but they may be studied with advantage in the 

 cliffs forming the right bank of the Elbe, below Hamburgh. A few words 

 respecting the cliffs there wiU be useful, as I am not aware that they have 

 been yet described. 



A nearly continuous section is seen from the point of Blankenese, west of Altona, to the village 

 of Schulau, a distance of about three miles. Throughout this space, the precipitous cliffs are 

 from fifty to eighty feet in height, and are undermined at certain points by the river. Their 

 composition is extremely various. At their western extremity, near Schulau, they are principally 

 composed of a great succession of thin layers of yellow and white quartzose sand, with loam, and 

 a few beds of flinty gravel. These sandy strata extend from the base of the cliffs to their summit, 

 as also to the top of the hills immediately behind, so that they must be upwards of 200 feet in 

 thickness above the sea level, and perhaps much more below it, no older rocks appearing in the 

 neighbourhood. The beds of sand at Schulau have frequently a diagonal lamination. 



The only shells which I was able to procure, after a careful search, were found on the face of 

 the cliffs at Schulau, and consisted of an imperfect univalve, and one valve of a Venericardia, not of 

 a recent species, as Dr. Beck ascertained, after comparing it with the shells in the valuable collection 



