SHELLY SANDS OF THE UPPER VISTULA. 
291 
from the character of the shells, and from the fact, that the saliferous strata b ra 
duate into and form part of the tertiary deposits of the Upper Vistula, of the age 
of which there can be no doubt. We indeed convinced ourselves upon the spot, 
that these masses of salt, worked at great depths beneath the surface, are simply 
great concretions, subordinate to thick masses of clay, which have been accumu- 
lated along the external edge of the younger secondary rocks (Gres des Carpathes), 
and formed subsequently to the elevation of the Carpathian chain. In tracing their 
outlines in the extensive subterranean works of Wieliczka, it has been ascertained, 
that these masses of salt (which are of great diameter near the principal shafts) range 
from west and by north to east and by south. They constitute, in fact, a narrow 
band only, which runs out in thin courses or strings towards the north, where it is 
surmounted by and inosculates with the shelly sands upon the banks of the Vistula. 
A general idea of these saline concretions and their relations to the older rocks 
upon the south, as well as to the tertiary shelly sands upon the north, is sufficiently 
explained by the accompanying transverse section. 
Tertiary sands and marls. Salt concretions, subordinate to Carpathian sandstone. 
J tovtiarv rlflv unr.h shells. 
But whilst the salt forms, as here represented, dome-shaped concretions which are 
lost in short spaces when followed to the north or south, it is more or less continuous 
in ellipsoidal masses for many leagues in a direction from west by north to east by 
south. In other words, the salt, by whatever cause produced, lias been formed along 
an ancient coast of the Carpathian mountains, the lower hills of which, consisting 
of greensand (Gres des Carpathes), advance and form their southern boundary. 
Among the shells of Wieliczka the Nucula comta (Goldf.) is abundant, and is asso- 
ciated withMilliolites and other very minute forms with which we are not acquainted, 
as well as with teeth of fishes and fossil wood. Again, the Ringicula buccinea (Desli.) 
was pointed out to us by Professor Zeuschner in the very body of the salt », and as 
this shell occurs in profusion in the adjacent sands of the Vistula, deposits to which 
we shall presently allude, there can be no doubt that the salt of Wieliczka is not only 
■ Professor Zeuschner having sent a mass of rock-salt with shells in it to Professor Philippi, the latter 
dissolving the matrix discovered in the residue forty species of animal remains ! viz. 5 Zoophytes, 14 Po- 
lythalanuc, 1 Echinus, 1 Serpula, 7 Conchifers, 8 Univalves, and 3 Crustaceans. Neues Jahrbuch, 
Leonhardt and Bronn, 1843, p. 568. Professor Philippi identifies a Cerithium with the C. Lima (Brug.) 
now living in the Mediterranean. 
