Structure of the Eastern Alps. 379 



1 . Yellow sands. 



2. Yellow sands with beds of pebbles. 



3. Greenish, micaceous sandstone. 



4. Blue and greenish, arenaceous, shelly marls, with bands of blue, impure, argillaceous lime- 

 stone, and greenish, micaceous sandstone. 



5. Dark, fetid, bituminous marls, with a bed of lignite three or four feet thick. 



6. Dark-coloured, shelly, arenaceous marls, with stone bands. 



7. Micaceous sandstone, weathering brown, but on fracture exposing a greenish surface. 



These g-roups rise into undulating- hills 500 or 600 feet high ; and all the 

 subordinate strata have an undeviating- dip S.S.W., at an angle of about 

 60°; and therefore appear to plunge under the secondary system of the Alps 

 - — a new example of what has been several times noticed in the previous 

 parts of this paper. 



The lignite varies in quality ; some parts crumble into small, black, cuboidal 

 fragments, and others have almost the external appearance of jet. The argil- 

 laceous stone bands, above and below the lignite, contain many fossils, and 

 are extremely fetid under the blows of the hammer. The parting-s of the 

 stone bands are sometimes almost covered with flattened shells of the genus 

 Cyclas : in the marls many of the shells are in a stale of beautiful preser- 

 vation, but cannot probably be identified with any published species. From 

 some of the g-roups above mentioned, we collected specimens of the follow- 

 ing-genera : viz. Melanopsis ; Cerithium; Cyclas, very nearly resembling- a 

 Cyclas of the Woolwich beds ; Lucina, of the same species as one found in 

 the MarzoU marls* ; and an unknown bivalve. 



We might now proceed to notice the lignite deposits of Pielach near Molk, 

 and other places on the Danube, but we think it better to postpone their 

 description to a subsequent chapter. We have stated enough to show, that 

 there are many deposits of lignite on the northern skirts of the Eastern Alps,, 

 and that they are not all on the same parallel. The one last described is 

 subordinate to the lower tertiary groups, and 7naij be of the same ag-e with 

 the deposit of H'aring. We offer this merely as a conjecture; for although 

 the fossils of the H'aring system unequivocally prove it to have been formed 

 in waters communicating with the sea, they are by no means sufficient to 

 prove that it was contemporaneous with the coal of Parsberg. The diff"erence 

 of mineral structure in the two deposits may, perhaps, be explained by their 

 entire difference of position in respect of the secondary Alpine formations. 



The previous details of this chapter prove — that during the successive 

 periods when the lignites were deposited, an ancient sea washed the northern 



* Untersberg section, Plate XXXVI. fig. 9. 



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