106 Prof. Sedgwick and Mr. Mnrchison on the 



of England. It is well exhibited in some of the beds of 

 Untersberg; which on the north-west flank of that mountain 

 contain innumerable Hippurites of the same species with those 

 found, both in Provence and the Pyrenees, among rocks sup- 

 posed to be of the age of the green-sand *. 



The Hippurite beds, in their prolongation towards the east, 

 pass under a great series of white and red indurated marls, 

 containing, we believe, some chalk fossils. These are sur- 

 mounted by gypseous marls, with bands of calcareous grit 

 containing Nummulites ; which are in turn surmounted by a 

 great system of beds, composed of sandstone (molasse), conglo- 

 merate, shale, and marl ; some of the highest of which (in ra- 

 vines below Schweiger Mill, &c. &c.) contain fossils similar to 

 those in the overlying beds of Gosau. (See PI. II. fig. 1 & 2.) 



We think these highest beds, from their position in the 

 section as well as from their fossils, are superior to the chalk ; 

 and on that account we in a former paper called them ter- 

 tiary. We at the same time stated that we regarded them as a 

 term of an undefined series, to be interpolated between the cal- 

 tdire grossier and the chalk, and that we did not pretend to draw 

 any well-defined line between them and the secondary system. 



We have already mentioned the ridges of hills, composed 

 of shale, sandstone, and limestone, developed on the out- 

 skirts of the Salzburg and Bavarian Alps close to the ter- 

 tiary system. Being more thin-bedded and of less firm tex- 

 ture than the older parts of the chain, they have been exposed 

 to extraordinary breaks and contortions; sometimes dipping 

 towards the mineralogical axis, and sometimes from it; in 

 one place being vertical, in others twisted into saddle-shaped 

 masses ; and, if we mistake not, being in some instances 

 absolutely inverted. This series appears to be greatly ex- 

 panded near the eastern termination of the Alps, and has been 

 described by Dr. Boue, with many excellent details, under the 

 name of Vienna sandstone (gres Viennois). In the maps and 

 memoirs of M. Keferstein, it is designated by the name of Flysch. 



From the outskirts of the calcareous zone near Reichenhall 

 to the valley of the Rhine, it forms, in the position we have 

 pointed out, a nearly continuous succession of ridges, easily 

 distinguished from the inner portions of the chain. In some 

 parts of the system the beds of limestone almost disappear, and 

 it then passes into a formation of sandstone and shale, hardly 

 to be separated, without the help of fossils, from the superior 



* We have the authority of Mr. Lyell, for stating that near Cape Pas- 

 sero in Sicily, Hippurites occur in a tertiary formation newer than the 

 Sub-apennine : but most frequently they seem to occur in the newer se- 

 condary formations. 



tertiary 



