322 Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison on the 



To the south of Steyer a transverse section through the wooded mountains 

 of Raming- and Tamberg', by Unterwald, exhibits a series of beds composed 

 of calcareous grit — of argillaceous^ smoke grey or bluish grey, slaty limestone, 

 crossed with white veins, often nearly compact and with a fine conchoidal 

 fracture, and alternating with grits and shales containing among other Algae 

 the Fucoides intricatiis in great abundance — also of a vast thickness of 

 greenish grey sandstone surmounting the preceding. In this sandstone series 

 many parts are fine-grained, micaceous, and thin bedded; but they are asso- 

 ciated with a coarser, green sandstone, passing through a very coarse grit into 

 a conglomerate (used for millstones in several parts of the chain), not, however, 

 by any means to be confounded with the very coarse conglomerates of the 

 tertiary system. These various rocks rise in the hills, above mentioned, to the 

 height of more than 'iOOO feet, close to the valley of the Danube; and beds of 

 the same structure extend for some distance up the Alpine gorges of the Enns, 

 as well as up the lateral depression through which the waters of the Teicher 

 escape from the high valley of Windischgarsten. 



We have no intention of offering any description of the formation, as it 

 ranges into the great promontory near Vienna, constituting the north-eastern 

 termination of the Austrian Alps (Wiener Wald). On this subject we must 

 refer to the ample details, published in various memoirs, by Dr. Boue. He 

 states that in the thin-bedded, blue limestones, facoid grits and shales, which 

 are so extensively developed in that extreme portion of the chain. Ammonites 

 and Belemnites are occasionally found ; and that in the same series there are, 

 here and there, thin bands of coal. 



We may finally mention, that in the western sinuosities of the chain in 

 Styria, are some magnificent sections of the fucoid grits and shales : for ex- 

 ample, in the gorges of the Kainach, and also at Rheinthaler-Hof, where the 

 grits are extensively quarried. The upper beds consist of slaty, micaceous sand- 

 stone ; the middle beds of fine-grained, bluish grit, used for whetstones ; and 

 the lowest of coarser grained, strong gritstone, passing into a conglomerate 

 with rounded pebbles, and used for millstones. Among these beds no organic 

 remains were discovered except fucoids, of which there is one very large, 

 unpublished species. With the exception of a few patches of limestone, 

 these grits and shales are the only deposits, interposed between the primary 

 chain of the Pach Alp and the tertiary formations of Lower Styria. 



We have already stated our opinion, that no precise line of separation can 

 be drawn between the group of deposits last described, and the highest por- 



northern portion of our transverse section of the Alps, accompanying the paper in the Annals of 

 Philosophy above referred to. This error has been very properly pointed out by Dr. Boue. 



