*)3'J MR J. W. GREGORY ON THE MALTESE FOSSIL ECHINOIDEA. 



and alone* in Greece, Asia Minor, Malta, and North Africa, has proved that Professor 

 Suss's classification could be applied over a much larger area than that for which it was 

 originally proposed. At the same time, he has established the synchronism of beds which, 

 formed of different materials, and under very dissimilar conditions and depths, along the 

 steep shores of Miocene Italy, or in the deep gulfs of the Vienna basin, now yield 

 different faunas, and bad been assigned to different epochs. Thus he and his collaborators 

 have taught us that near Vienna the Leithakalk is the littoral representative of the 

 Baden Tegel ; along the Apennines the Schlier is the deep-sea continuation of the Molassa 

 marnosa and Molassa serpentinosa ; and in Sicily the Astian is, in part at least, the shore 

 deposit of the Zanclean. He, in fact, worked out among the Mediterranean Miocenes the 

 same principles which have been applied with such brilliant results by Professor Lap- 

 worth t to the " Sequence of the Southern Uplands " of Scotland. 



But while Herr Fuchs was thus engaged in the more central part of the Mediterranean 

 basin, Andrusov was proving the applicability of the same classification in the extreme 

 East by finding in the Crimea and around Stavropol that the " black clay with Meletta " 

 contained Pecten denudatus, and other species characteristic of the Schlier, while the 

 overlying Chokrah Limestone yielded the fauna of the second " Mediteran-Stufe/'J The 

 physical history of the Mediterranean, as revealed by these researches, has been sum- 

 marised by Professor Suss himself in his well-known essay on the " Mittelmeer," § while 

 later we owe a brilliant sketch of the same subject to the master hand of the late Pro- 

 fessor Nedmayr.|| Further details and sketch-maps of the eastern part of the area have 

 been given by Professor Inostranzev.H 



But in the western part of the Mediterranean basin the Vienna classification has not 

 met with such general acceptance. The system worked out by Professor Carl Mayer in 

 Liguria has not only held its ground there, but been adopted in France and Spain on 

 the one side, and as far south as Algeria on the other ; while, even in the Vienna basin, 

 the accepted classification has been severely criticised in a couple of weighty papers by 

 Dr A. Bittner,** whose arguments may show that the differences between the two 

 " Mediteran-Stufen" in the most typical area are less clearly marked than has been 

 thought. Though Fuchs has shown that the Maltese sequence is in agreement with that 



* Vide the series of papers by Th. Fuchs, Sitz. k. k. Ak. Wiss. Wien, lxvi.-lxxvii. 



t C. Lapworth, " On the Ballantrae Rocks of South Scotland, and their place in the Upland Sequence," Geol. 

 Mag. (3), vi., 1889, pp. 20-24, 59-69. 



| N. I. Andrusov, " Gheologhlcheskiya Izslyedovaniya v zaradnol polovinye Kerchenskagho polyostrova prolzve- 

 dennuiya lyetom 1884 ghoda," Zap. Novoross. Obshch. Est, xi., pt. 2, pp. 117, 118, 121 ; see also " tretichnuikh 

 otlozheniyakh Daghestana," Trud. St. Pet. Obshch. Est., xix., pt. 2, 1888, p. xv ; and " kharaksherye Miotzenobuikh 

 ocadkov Kpuima," Trud. St. Pet. Obshch. Est., xvii., pt. 2, 1886, pp. 59-61. 



§ E. Suss, Das Antlitz der Erde, i., 1885, pp. 375-414. 



|| M. Neumayr, Erdgeschichte, ii., 1887, pp. 515-522. 

 IT A. Inostranzev, Gheologhiya, ii., 1887, pp. 394-396. 



** A. Bittner, " Ueber den Charakter der sarmatischen Fauna des Wiener Beckens," Jahrb. k. k. geol. Reichs., xxxiii., 

 1883, pp. 131-150. " Zur Literatur der osterreichischen Tertiarablagerungen," ib., xxxiv., 1884, pp. 137-146. " Noch ein 

 Beitrag zur neueren Tertiiirliteratur," ib., xxxvi., 1886, pp. 1-70. Also " Neue Daten iiber den Charakter und die 

 Herkunft der sarmatischen Fauna," Verk. k. k. geol. Reichs., 1891, pp. 195-8. 



