ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXIX 



the present geologists, including Von Buch and Murchison'^, have 

 placed the Carpathian sandstone with its fucoids and nummulites 

 in the Cretaceous system, it must be stated, that M. Pusch having 

 re-examined the ground and fossils in 1830, in company with 

 Professor Zeuschner, came also to the conclusion, that this disputed 

 group might be an equivalent of the greensand series. But as this 

 opinion is expressed in the appendix only to his work, the reader 

 must consult it in order to interpret correctly the classification laid 

 down upon the general map, and the changes adopted by the author, 

 and further to understand the extent to which he admitted the com- 

 parisons between the Alps and Carpathians, a memoir on which had 

 at that time been just published by Boue and Keferstein. Seeing, how- 

 ever, that the differences of opinion which prevailed seventeen years 

 ago have not even yet been thoroughly adjusted, in reference to the 

 age of the Carpathian sandstones, and that Professor Zeuschner 

 thinks there are alternations of limestone with Jurassic fossils, let us 

 hope that those geologists who are competent to the task will endea- 

 vour to delineate the natural limit between the Cretaceous and Juras^ 

 sic systems of that region; and in comparing them with their equi- 

 valents in the Eastern Alps and the North of Italy, will indicate the 

 different species of Nummulites which characterize each subfor- 

 mation, and point out to what horizon this striking family of Zoo- 

 phytes descends in the vertical scale of the secondary formations. 

 Until these distinctions be established, the age of deposits cannot be 

 determined by the presence of Nummulites only ; for we know 

 that some species exist in the Eocene tertiary, and others throughout 

 the chalk and greensand ; and it is even contended that these fossils 

 also alternate in the Jurassic series. The last congress of Italian 

 naturalists have therefore done well in offering a premium to the 

 naturalist who will best answer this interesting question, and will 

 clearly mark the first appearance of Nummulites, and the diversity 

 of their species in succeeding periods. In short, this desirable end 

 must be accomplished, before the labours of Von Buch, Boue, Lill von 

 Lilienbach, Pusch, and Sedgwick and Murchison, can be brought 

 into accordance with the more recent observations of Zeuschner, 

 Pilla of Pisa, and other writers. 



Again, since M. Pusch's researches were carried out, the salt for- 

 mations on the northern flank of the Carpathian sandstone have been 

 clearly shown by their imbedded fossils to belong to the Miocene 

 tertiary agef ; but on this point, whilst he might well be misled by 

 the appearance exhibited by the natural sections of such saliferous 

 masses dipping beneath the secondary Carpathian sandstone, we 

 must not forget that he more nearly approached the truth than any 

 of his predecessors, most of whom, led by English and other Euro- 

 pean analogies, considered the salt rocks of Wielieczka to be of the 

 age of the New Red Sandstone. Such indeed has been the destiny 

 of all former conclusions which have been exclusively based eithei: 



* See Russia and the Ural Mountains, vol. i. p. 265. 

 t ii>i<i' vol. i, p. 290. 



