TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES
OF
GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS.
On the Geology of Roumelia. By Prof. E. von Hochstetter. [Proc. Imp. Geol. Inst. Vienna, November 16, 1869.]
Professor Hochstetter has accompanied M. W. Pressel on a tour through part of European Turkey. The region explored by him occupies an area of about 800 Austrian square miles, stretching through about 80 miles, from the river Morawa to the Bosphorus, with an average width of 10 miles, from the Balkan to the Rhodopi. He distinguishes the following districts : —
1. The Cretaceous plateau between Rustschuk and Varna. — The mass of plateaux and flattened mountains, with a maximum altitude of 1200 feet above the sea-level, from the northern base of the Balkan, near Schumla and Razgrad, to Rustschuk on the Danube, is composed of a system of nearly horizontally stratified calcareous marls, green sandstones, and Oolitic limestones. Abundant remains of Cephalopoda (Belemnites, Ammonites, Baculites, Hamites, &c.) found in the quarries of Schendeinschick, in a rock exactly resembling the marls of the Planerkalk, show that these deposits belong to the Cretaceous series. These sub-Balkanian Cretaceous rocks have a northern European type, as has already been remarked by Prof. Peters with regard to the contemporaneous deposits in the Dobrudscha. Well-marked Nummulitic Limestones (described by Capt. Spratt in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiii.) occur round Varna, and Sarmatian deposits cover a very limited space in the immediate vicinity of that place.
2. The Byzantine peninsula is composed of Devonian strata and of Tertiary Limestones. The latter are of Eocene age at Jarim Burgas, and of Neogene date at Makrikioi. The range of Tschataldsche rises like an island out of these Tertiaries. Eruptive rocks of Trachytic, Dioritic, and Andesitic nature are conspicuously developed on the shores of the Bosphorus.
3. The Lower Maritza or Adrianople basin. — This is bounded on the north by a range formed of Eocene Limestone, resting immediately on gneiss, near Sarai, Visa, Kirklisi, &c. The interior of the basin, which is furrowed by innumerable watercourses, is filled up with Newer Tertiary and diluvial freshwater deposits. Prof. Hochstetter nowhere met with traces of Neogene marine deposits south of the Balkan.
4. The region of the river Tundscha. — Between Adrianople and
VOL. XXVI. PART IT. B
