Land-tracts during the Secondary and Tertiary Periods. 273 



to a return of the sea. We may to some extent trace the line 

 of volcanic band to which this elevation was due (or rather 

 in which it had its focus), along the northern border of the 

 tract. Thus the great chain of the Northern Carpathians, 

 although in convulsion during later tertiary periods, appears, 

 from the sections of Sir Roderick Murchison, to have been 

 upheaved, and the cretaceous strata to have acquired a con- 

 siderable inclination, prior to the formation of the nummulitic 

 deposits*. The Pyrenees also appear f to have undergone 

 their principal elevation prior to the newer cretaceous period. 

 Mr. Prestwich, again, has found reason to infer that the Weald 

 anticlinal had begun prior to the close of the upper creta- 

 ceous formation {. From these, and also from the system of 

 the Jura or Cote d'Or, which, coming into existence in the 

 early part of the cretaceous age§, possessed a direction from N.E. 

 to S.W., or intermediate between those, characteristic of the se- 

 condary and tertiary periods respectively, it appears that the 

 movements which elevated the old secondary sea-bed, and brought 

 into existence a continent which endured for a period long enough 

 to change the complexion of the higher orders of the animal 

 kingdom, had begun towards the close of the secondary period. 

 To what other volcanic bands the elevation of this' continent was 

 due we have not at present the evidence to show ; but the general 

 conformity, between the tertiary and cretaceous beds in Southern 

 Europe, to which I have adverted would point to these bands 

 being further to the south than any of the places hitherto ex- 

 amined. 



We see that the Maestricht, and also some other deposits of 

 limited extent || which some geologists have referred to the new- 

 est cretaceous age, were formed in the contiguity of what appears 

 to me to have been the volcanic band from which the elevation of 

 the secondary sea-bed was proceeding; and their limited cha- 

 racter thus becomes intelligible, as they would only endure during 

 the comparatively brief period before the secondary sea-bed be- 

 came converted into a continental tract, when, the volcanic forces 

 to which that elevation was due becoming quiescent, no further 

 deposits took place until these forces again burst forth and pre- 

 vailed during the tertiary period over the areas occupied by the 



* See the sections in Murchison, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. v. p. 259. 



t D'Archiac, Bull. vol. xiv. p. 507. 



% Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 257. 



§ See Lory, Bull. vol. xi. p. 780 ; Benoit, in vol. xv. p. 315. 



|| The equivalent of the Maestricht is said by M. Coquand to occur in 

 the Charentes (Bull. vol. xiv. p. 571). The late Mr. Sharpe also referred 

 some sands at Farringdon to the same epoch (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. x. p. 176) ; but his views are disputed by others. See Davidson, Bull. 

 vol. xi. p. 180. 



