208 TERTIARIES OF ASIA MINOR. 



tries we visited. In the south-west of Asia 

 Minor the prevailing igneous rock is serpentine, 

 in the north-western districts various forms of 

 trachyte. Marine tertiaries of the same age with 

 those of Rhodes and Cos, — newer pliocene, — 

 have been observed on the coast of the Troad 

 and bordering the Dardanelles. They were first 

 noticed by Olivier. We have examined fossils 

 from these tertiaries. But no marine tertiaries 

 of more ancient origin have been described from 

 this country besides those discovered by us occu- 

 pying valleys in the Lycian Taurus, and probably 

 of miocene age. Fresh-water tertiaries are very 

 generally distributed in Asia Minor, and are 

 beautifully seen around the gulph of Smyrna.* 

 Some of these appear to be miocene, others 

 of older date and apparently formations of the 

 eocene epoch. Perhaps the most remarkable fact 

 connected with the latter is that in many places 

 they form the coast-line, bounding a sea which 

 rapidly deepens to more than one hundred 

 fathoms. The straits between Scio and the 

 mainland are excavated in these fresh-water 

 tertiaries. 



* See Lieutenant Spratt's paper on the geology of the 

 Gulph of Smyrna in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society, vol. i. 



