363 Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison on the 



present insulated and elevated position. We would however remark, that it 

 is equally difficult to explain their present position among the serrated peaks 

 of the Alps, whether they be considered secondary or tertiary. For we have 

 shown, that similar deposits with the same fossils exist on the outskirts of the 

 chain at low levels ; from which it follows, that enormous movements of eleva- 

 tion must have taken place since their formation, whatever may be their age. 

 Now among the phenomena we have so far described in this and the pre- 

 ceding chapter, there is unquestionably nothing which limits the movements 

 of elevation to the secondary periods. 



When the doctrine of elevation is admitted, difficulties like that we have 

 just considered at once vanish. We have no right to limit the powers of 

 nature. The forces which upheaved the colossal chain of the Alps may 

 have raised some parts of it without greatly deranging the inclination of the 

 subordinate strata ; and by such a movement the overlying beds of Gosau 

 appear to have been lifted up to the high level which they now occupy. After 

 the full details we have given respecting the overlying groups of Gosau, a 

 much more concise description will suffice for other corresponding deposits. 



2. Section through the Valley of Zlain tiear Aussee. 



One of the authors having, during the last summer, seen traces of the 

 Gosau beds near Old Aussee, was induced to ascend, by the side of a mountain 

 torrent called the Weissenbach, to the summer pastures of Zlam. They 

 stretch for about a mile in a direction nearly east and west; their greatest 

 breadth is not more than half a mile, being shut in towards the north and 

 south by mural precipices of Alpine limestone ; and they are at an elevation 

 probably of not less than 5000 feet above the level of the sea. The Weissen- 

 bach flows from a combe at the higher (or eastern) end of this extraordinary 

 little valley, and lays open a series of shelly deposits which occupy all the 

 lower portions of it*. 



The lowest of the overlying beds are on the northern side of the valley, 

 and consist of a red conglomerate of Alpine limestone, which, as at Gosau, 

 graduates into bluish marlstone with the large univalves, Tornatella and 

 Nerinea ; the whole series being inclined at a considerable angle against the 

 overhanging precipice of the Gros-Berg, on the sides of which the conglome- 

 rate rises to the height of about 300 feet above the level of the rivulet. The 

 overlying beds of blue marl contain small Cerithia, Corals, (Fungije) Sharks' 

 teeth, and several species of Gosau shells, (for example Cerithium conoideum, 



* Plate XXXVI. fig. 12. 



