5G 
UPPER TRIASSIC, OR 
teristic series of fossils—chiefly cephalopod shells—which repre¬ 
sent the Upper Triassic group, so well developed in the Austrian 
Alps. Geologists were, of course, prepared to find a marine 
fauna occupying the horizon of the great sterile formation of 
Kcuper sandstone, which spreads through Northern Europe ; 
but the discovery of the now well-known St. Cassian and 
Ilallstadt beds in the Tyrolese Alps caused no little surprise, 
when first the publication of their fossils by Count Munster, 
Klipstein, and others showed the peculiar nature of this fauna. 
It was not till the more complete researches by Von Hauer 
among the fossils of the Dachstein Mountains, and in the 
Salzkammergut—the latter carried on and published under 
the auspices of Prince Metternich—that the true horizon of 
these prolific Alpine limestones was finally ascertained. The 
fauna was a strangely mixed one ; of primary and secondary 
forms—of Sjririfers and of numerous Ammonites —of Ortho- 
ceratites among ordinary mesozoic forms of shells.* And all 
these mixed with the highly-cliaracteristic genus of the 
Muschelkalk—the Ceratites— a fossil very generally believed 
to be confined to Triasf rocks alone. 
The more extended study of these beds by continental geolo¬ 
gists has only confirmed the impression they first gave, that 
their fossils were an intermediate group between the primary 
and secondary systems of life. It is true that the small glob¬ 
ular fossils which could hardly be distinguished from Goni- 
atites prove to be only the young state of Ceratites, and of 
Ammonites—both genera of secondary rocks—but, then, these 
ammonites themselves belong to a group—the Globosi —nearer 
to the Goniatite than any other. It is also true that several 
* Nerincea is a genus wliicli will he readily recognized as mesozoic. 
f It was, however, described by Von Buch. from cretaceous rocks in the 
Lebanon, and also in France, Berlin Trans. 1848; and -was recognized by my¬ 
self in the collection of carboniferous limestones brought by Dr. Fleming from 
the Punjab.— Quart. Geol. Journal, vol. ix, p. 193. The localities there are 
Chederoo, Kafir Kote, &c. 
