160 COAL= AND PETROLEUM-DEPOSITS [ Feb. 1902, 
Discussion, 
Prof. Sortas remarked on the great interest of the observations 
coutributed by the Author to the history of a district which would 
always be associated in the minds of geologists with the genius of 
Neumayr. ‘That Eocene beds were involved in the structure of the 
/Afigean ‘island’ was a new and hitherto unsuspected fact, which 
would render necessary some corrections in its outlines, if not a 
fundamental change in our conceptions concerning it. Hitherto 
the oldest post-Palzozoic beds recognized in the district were the 
Sarmatian, and curiosity was naturally aroused as to the nature of 
the succession intervening between these deposits and the Eocene. 
It was to be hoped that the Author would be able to furnish sections 
in illustration of this question. 
As regards the origin of the Dardanelles, Nenmayr had supposed 
that they had been produced probably as a valley along a line of 
fracture, and at a time so recent as the Pleistocene, Prof, Andrussoy, 
however, had given reasons to show that they were probably already 
in existence during the Upper Pliocene, since the Chauda Beds of 
Kerch occur, according to him, near Gallipoli, where they contain 
Didacna crassa and Dreissena T'schaude. Besides this, Dreissena 
rostriformis is found both at the bottom of the Pontus and of the 
Sea of Marmora, thus proving the existence of Pontic conditions in 
that Sea during late Pliocene times. In view of these facts, the age 
of the ‘ raised beach’ becomes a matter of extreme importance ; if it 
is not on the horizon of the Chauda Beds, fresh difficulties arise 
in our study of this problem, which may be welcomed (as likely to 
lead to a more complete solution. 
Virchow had described undulating ridges stretching across the 
alluvial plains of Troy, containing large blocks of stone derived from 
the mountains behind; and Neumayr commented on the interest 
of this discovery, in view of the fact that no signs of extended glacial 
action had been furnished by the Balkan Peninsula. The present 
Author’s observations confirmed and extended the conclusions of 
Virchow, even if the evidence as to the existence of glacial strize were 
of a very doubtful character, as to him (the speaker) it seemed to be. 
Prof. Hutt considered the paper of great interest, as bearing on 
the view that the Mediterranean Sea consisted in Pleistocene times 
of a series of freshwater lakes connected with the Black Sea by 
the Straits of the Dardanelles, and by channels now submerged, 
one of which had been traced by soundings by Admiral Spratt. 
When elephants and hippopotami inhabited Malta—as shown by 
Leith Adams—the surrounding waters were unquestionably fresh, 
the outlet into the ocean being closed. ‘The Author’s description of 
the great boulder-clay formation suggested the agency of glaciers 
in Asia Minor during Pleistocene times; and this was by no means 
improbable, when we recollected that glaciers had descended from 
the Lebanon, and had left their terminal moraines at a level of 
4000 feet above the sea, from which the cedars were now rising, as 
described by Sir Joseph Hooker. 
