310 Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison on the 



Three or four salt springs rise in this valley ; and as the red sandstone 

 plunges on both sides beneath the lowest strata of the Alpine limestone series^ 

 there can^ we think, be no doubt that these salt springs (unlike those of Ischel, 

 Aussee^, and Hallein, which have been shown in our published sections to be 

 included in the Alpine limestone) are of the same, or very nearly of the same, 

 age as the great salt deposits in England. 



(3.) We are now also disposed to classify the salt deposit of the valley of 

 Berchtesgaden with the red sandstone which is inferior to the Alpine lime- 

 stone : for the brecciated saliferous masses of that place, associated with 

 variegated marls and red sandstone, not only rise from beneath the lower 

 strata of the Hohe Gbll ; but after a great flexure plunge towards the north 

 under the base of the Untersberg, and are surmounted by a vast succession 

 of strata representing, we believe, the whole Alpine limestone series*. The 

 coloured map accompanying this paper will serve to indicate the valleys in 

 which the red sandstone group is reproduced, on successive lines nearly pa- 

 rallel to each other and to the central axis of the chain f. 



Dr. Buckland was, we believe, the first who ventured to regard the group 

 above described as the equivalent of a part of the new red sandstone and 

 magnesian limestone series of England, thereby excluding every part of the 

 great zone of Alpine limestone from the order of transition rocks. This by 

 itself was a great step towards an explanation of some of the perplexing 

 phenomena of the Alps ; and all geologists who have examined the question 

 appear to be now so far agreed, as to place the red sandstone and gypseous 

 marls at the base of the secondary system of the chain. There may be 

 some difficulties in drawing any precise line of separation between the 

 transition and secondary systems ; as we, indeed, before acknowledged in 

 alluding to the great masses of sparry iron ore on the north flank of the 



* During our visit to the eastern Alps in 1829, we supposed that the saliferous deposits of 

 Jlallein and Berchtesgaden were of the same age, and that both of them were superior to the 

 red sandstone which forms the base of the secondary system of the Alps. We were led into what 

 we now believe to have been an error, by connecting (agreeably to the published system of M.de 

 I>ill)the section through theTannen Gebirge and the salt-works of Ilallein, with the range of the 

 Untersberg. (Phil. Mag. and Annals, vol. viii. pi. 2. fig. 2.) In point of fact this connexion is 

 interrupted by an enormous dislocation ranging between the two deposits. M. de Lill, whose 

 nil moirs have thrown a great light on the structure of the Salzburg Alps, has considerably modi- 

 fied his opinions since the time of their first publication ; and it is right to state, that in the year 

 1829 (though he then connected the Ilallein and Untersberg sections as we represented them) 

 he maintained that the saliferous brecciated formations of Hallein and Berchtesgaden were pro- 

 bably not of the same age. 



t Plate XXXV & XXXVI. fig. 9. 



