OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 
967 
the Black Earth or Tchernozem of the Steppes. Whatsoever may be their origin, it 
is evident from the heights at which the Loess and the black earth are found, that the 
waters in which they were deposited reached to considerable altitudes, and the general 
character, both of the Loess and of the black earth would accord with a sedimentation 
from the turbid and barren waters of a temporary submergence. Like the Loess, the 
black earth occurs at all heights, and covers the valley drifts. From its uniformity 
and wide extent Muechison supposed it to have been deposited under water, and 
considered that it might have been in great part derived from the black Jurassic shales 
which are largely developed in Southern Russia, so that its origin, as with other forms 
of the Rubble-drift, would be local. 
The area covered by these deposits is so vast—larger than that of some European 
countries—and so nearly flat and open, that the waters during emergence must have 
flowed off less rapidly than they would in more restricted channels, and therefore 
allowed of a greater sedimentation. As in Western Europe, the organic remains of ' 
the Loess are all those of a land surface, and though none have been found in the 
black earth, its highly nitrogenous character is a singular feature, and indicative of 
the presence of organic if not of animal matter. 
Greece .—Since the great work published by the French Government,"^ in which 
the extent and physical characters of the Quaternary deposits were treated with a 
fulness unusual for the time at which it was written, I am not aware that anything 
has been done to throw much additional light upon these drift beds of Greece. 
MM. Boblaye and Virlet placed these deposits, which they term “Alluvions 
anciennes,” between the Tertiary formations and the last upheaval which marks in 
Greece the commencement of the present period. The latest of these is composed of 
a red earth containing angular fragments of the local rocks, some of wLich are more 
than a metre long, but as the deposit approaches the sea, to the level of which it 
descends, the fragments became less angular. This drift covers the valleys of the 
Morea and rises to a considerable height up the sides of the adjacent hills, of which 
it follows the slopes, and is in places cut off on the coast by cliffs 15 to 20 metres 
high, while in the valleys, the torrents have cut into it to considerable depths. 
Though the deposit is unstratified in the upper parts of the valleys, on the coast it 
becomes interstratified with seams of sand and gravel. Previous to the spread of 
this drift, there had been an elevation of the coast to the extent of 20 to 25 metres, 
as shown by lines of Pholas perforations. An instance occurs on the cliffs near 
Nauplia. In other places traces of a Raised Beach exist. Over one of these was a 
drift bed with Helix algira.\ 
The authors say that this ferruginous and argillaceous drift “fills the valleys and 
* ‘Expedition Scientifique de Moree; Geologie et Mineralogie,’ par MM. De Boblate et T. Virlet, 
vol. 2, 2nd part, pp. 316-375, 1833. 
t In an overlying bed some rnde pottery was found. 
