THE DISTRICT OF SCHEMNITZ, HUNGARY. 297 



both of which, however, are on the outer margin of the volcanic 

 area in question. 



It would lead me too far from the main objects of the present 

 memoir were I to attempt any thing like an analysis of the splendid 

 flora associated with these tuffs, numbering as it at present does 

 many hundreds of species. Suffice it at present to notice that 

 in the opinion of Th. Euchs, the greatest living authority on the 

 subject of the Tertiaries of Eastern Europe, they indicate the exist- 

 ence at the period of these volcanic outbursts of a warm temperate 

 climate — and that the nearest living analogues of the plants of the 

 period are now found in Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the Himalaya, 

 Central and Northern Asia, and Japan. 



The exact period of the grand outbursts of andesitic lavas and 

 agglomerates in Hungary, which gave rise to the formation of a 

 series of volcanos exceeding Etna in dimensions, the relics of one 

 of which we are now studying in detail, is fixed, by means of the 

 palaeontological evidence we have above alluded to, as that of the 

 " Sarrnatische Stufe," a geological horizon which may be paralleled 

 with that of the beds which in Western Europe are classified as 

 the Miocene proper of Beyrich, or the Upper Miocene of Lyell. 



The structure, then, of the girdle of volcanic rocks which sur- 

 rounds the Schenmitz mining-district is, as will have appeared from 

 the foregoing description, sufficiently simple and intelligible. AVe 

 see in it the ruins, greatly wasted by denuding causes, of an 

 enormous volcanic cone, built up both by eruptions from its centre 

 and also by innumerable outbursts upon its flanks. 



But when we proceed to examine the central area which the 

 great girdle of lavas and tuffs encircles, we discover a series of rocks 

 presenting the most complicated and puzzling relations with one 

 another. 



We may notice, in the first place (see Plate XX.), the masses of strati- 

 fied rocks, including dolomitic limestones, with sandstones and shales^ 

 containing fossils which clearly show that they are of the age of the 

 Werfener Schichten (Lower Trias), and upon which is seen resting at 

 cne point, namely near Eisenbach, a small patch of Eocene lime^ 

 stone crowded with Nummulites. Very intimately associated with 

 these sedimentary rocks, of which the exact geological age is thus 

 rendered perfectly clear by their contained fossils, we find a series 

 of unrossiliferous and highly metamorphic rocks, consisting of crys- 

 talline limestone, quartzite and quartz-schiefer, various schistose 

 rocks, gneiss, and aplite or granulite. In equally close connexion 

 with these metamorphic rocks we find a number of clearly intru- 

 sive igneous masses, consisting of greenstone or diorite, and of rocks 

 which have been almost universally classed, by the geologists who 

 have studied the district, as " syenite and granite." 



By all the earlier writers on the geology of the Schemnitz area, 

 this central mass of metamorphic and igneous rocks was regarded 

 as being of Primary age ; but it has been gradually made clear by 

 later observations that, so far as the so-called " greenstones " are 

 concerned, they are undoubtedly connected with the Tertiary andc* 



