Volume 183501

Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation / [Sir Charles Lyell].

  • Lyell, Charles, Sir, 1797-1875
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation / [Sir Charles Lyell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/468
    then bent my course homeward, seeing, at Genoa, Professor Viviani and Dr. Sasso, the last of whom put into my hands his memoirs on the strata of Albenga (see Vol. IV. p.16.), in which I found that, according to his list of shells, the tertiary formations at the foot of the maritime Alps con- tained about 50 per cent. of recent species. I next re-visited Turin, and communicated to Signor Bonelli the result of my inquiries respect- ing the tertiary beds of the south of Italy, and of Sicily, upon which he kindly offered to review his fossils, some of which had been obtained from those countries, and to compare them with the Subapennine shells of northern Italy. He also promised to draw up immediately a list of the shells characteristic of the tertiary green-sand of the Superga, and common to that locality and Bordeaux, that I might publish it at the end of my second volume; but the death of this amiable and zealous naturalist soon afterwards deprived me of the benefit of his assistance. I had now fully decided on attempting to esta- blish four subdivisions of the great tertiary epoch, the same which are fully illustrated in the present work. I considered the basin of Paris and London to be the type of the first division ; the beds of the Superga, of the second; the Sub- apennine strata of northern Italy, of the third ; AD