VIII. — Observations on the Secondary Formations between Nice and 



the Col di Tendi. 



By the Rev. W. BUCKLAND, D.D. V.P.G.S., F.ll.S. P.L.S. &c. &c. 



PROFESSOR OF MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 



[Read January I6th, 1829.] 



riAVING occasion to visit the neighbourhood of Nice in the spring of 1826, 

 I am gratified to bear testimony to the accuracy of the description of that 

 district given by Mr. De laBeche in the preceding paper, and beg to subjoin a 

 few observations which I made in company with M. Risso along nearly fifty miles 

 of the high road that runs north-east from Nice towards the Col di Tendi. 



The hill, one mile south of the village of Scarena and twelve miles north- 

 east of Nice, affords a section of the green-sand formation, the details of 

 which I noted on the spot, and which coincide with those given by Mr. De 

 la Beche in other localities nearer to Nice. The mass of the stratum is a blue 

 and grey marlstone, like the chalk-marl or firestone of England; through this 

 are dispersed, subordinately, beds of a coarse and gritty limestone, with large 

 calcareous masses containing green earth, and nodules of chert and of coarse 

 jasper resembling the chert and jasper of the green-sand formation at Lyme 

 and Sidmouth. The beds near Scarena abound with Nummulites, Turrilites, 

 Ammonites, and the usual shells of the English green-sand formation. All these 

 characters, however, disappear in the compact grey limestone, which both 

 covers and lies beneath the well defined beds of green-sand; and it deserves 

 investigation, whether the superior compact limestone is a modified condition 

 of chalk, or an equivalent to the sandy and argillaceous deposits that make up 

 the great bulk of the green-sand formation of England; the study of its fossils 

 will hereafter probably be decisive of this question. 



On the road from Scarena to Sospello, at a spot called Rocca Tagliata, the 

 Mountain of Braus exhibits strata almost entirely composed of grains of green 

 earth, and loaded with Ammonites, Belemnites, and Nummulites. Three di- 

 stinct and thick beds of this green-sand alternate with beds of blue marl and 

 of blue limestone : all these dip inwards to the centre of the mountain, and 

 are covered by a vast thickness of compact limestone ; they again emerge from 



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