RESULTS. I?! 



and fragments of cretaceous (?) chert, recently discovered in the vent 

 of a tertiary volcano on the Isle of Arran ; ' limestones with fossils 

 included in tuffs of the volcano of Santorin ; 2 crag-shaped, marmorized 

 limestones and alabaster found in the crater of the volcano Palandokan 

 in Armenia ; 3 further, pieces of older rocks, " crowded with crinoids " 

 occurring in the eocene traps of the Indus Valley,* all these occur- 

 rences fall more or less into line with the exotic blocks of Johar 

 and Tibet. These instances could be greatly augmented, but those 

 mentioned will suffice. 



Counter arguments. — The theory here advanced was shortly dis- 

 cussed and rejected by Diener in his " Ergebnisse," p. 606. According 

 to him it would be wrong to imagine that the exotic blocks had been 

 torn off from the depth and brought up by igneous rocks, like the ejec- 

 ted fragments of cretaceous limestone in the lavas of Mount Vesuvius. 

 His arguments are that the unaltered state of the limestones of Peak 

 Chirchun No. 1 and the good preservation of the fossils even on the 

 contact with the igneous rocks as well as the absence of contact 

 minerals exclude this theory. 



These arguments might, however, be met by counter arguments. 

 First of all we know now that fossiliferous blocks are greatly in the 

 minority, the bulk being entirely altered. Diener himself noticed 

 this near Talla Sangcha (1. c. p. 600), remarking that the limestones 

 are " for the greater part crystalline, marmorized and highly altered in 

 the contact." 



On the other hand the little altered state of and the occurrence of 

 well preserved fossils in a few of these innumerable blocks does not 

 tell as much against my theory as Diener was inclined to believe. 



The limestones ejected by Mount Vesuvius have yielded several 

 hundred species of shells, which cannot have been of very bad preser- 

 vation, since they were specifically determinable. 5 



1 Summary of progress of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom for 

 iS99, p. 133. 



2 Fritsch Zeitsch. d. Deutsch Geol. Gesellsch, XXIII, 1871, p. 208. 



3 Abich, Geologie des Armenischen Hochlandes, Western half, 1882, p. 76. 

 * Lydekker. Mem. XXII, p. 113. 



5 Judd, Volcanoes, p. 45. 



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