424 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 22, 



beds, whilst the tertiary formations exhibit themselves iu hills which 

 flauk the Tagliameute, where it issues from the high Alps, and espe- 

 cially to the east of its left bank beyond Yenzone and Gemona, to the 

 south of which, between S. Daniele and Trigesimo, the fertile hills 

 and green pastm-es are formed by still newer beds of sands and peb- 

 bles, whose lower strata are connected with the tertiaries, wliilst the 

 upper present the characters of a diluvium. In the northern parts 

 of Friuli the trias continues to show itself beneath the Jurassic beds 

 uninterruptedly to the valleys from which the Piave takes its rise ; 

 but in this part of our mountains the lower arenaceous beds acquire 

 a great thickness, and repose upon mica slate, which more or less 

 visibly forms the base of all the high mountains of the Lombardo- 

 Yenetian territory, and which is particularly well exhibited in the 

 northern flank of this great outer barrier to the Alps of the Tyrol 

 and Carinthia. The mica slate and triassic gi'its are also seen in the 

 valleys which nm south parallel to the Piave, from whence it can be 

 followed in the Cadore. 



These fomiations are seen largely developed in the mountains be- 

 tween the valley of Sexten and that of La Boite, in some parts of 

 which the trias is covered by argillaceous schists and a grejdsh lime- 

 stone, which I suspect from its position may be has, but in which as 

 yet no fossils have been fomid. Descending the valley of La Boite and 

 turning to the south, the older beds have disappeared under the Jurassic 

 rocks, which compose the mountains the whole way to the Belluno 

 basin, whilst the valleys of Zoldo and Cordevole, which open on the 

 right bank of the Piave, enable us again to see the oldest fossihferous 

 formation re-appearing in a line parallel to that where it shows itself 

 in the valley of La Boite. Its hmits may be traced in the districts of 

 Agordo, and of Primiero, to Yalsugana and the basin of Trent, in a hne 

 running north-east and south-west, which is at a right angle to the 

 general dip of the beds. All the mountain masses north of this hne 

 exhibit the older rocks, frequently disturbed and upset by the granites 

 and poi-phviies which branch from those of the Tyrol, and by mela- 

 phyre. To the south of this line, like a great barrier to the older 

 rocks, rises the mass of oohtic, neocomian, cretaceous, eocene, mio- 

 cene, and pliocene formations in conformable stratification. 



Thus far my obsei-vations tend to confirm what Sir R. I, Murchison 

 announced in 1829, that is to say, the conformabihty of the Jurassic, 

 cretaceous, and tertiary formations. This may be seen even in the 

 parts most disturbed by eruptive rocks, and may be traced down to 

 the lowest, for the parallelism of the beds from the mica slate to the 

 Jurassic may be seen in the district of Recoaro, which is, so to say, 

 a triassic island upheaved by greenstone eruptions, to the south of the 

 line I have indicated, and in the middle of the oolitic rocks of the 

 Yicentin. 



The observations I have made in the neighbourhood of BeUuno, 

 which are partly confirmatory of those of M. Catullo, enable me to 

 fix the southern hmit of the mica slate and trias from the basin 

 of Trent along the Brenta into Yalsugana, then across the Canal 

 di S. Bovo, the valleys of the Cismon, the ]\Iis, the Cordevole, the 



