SOURCE   OF   ST.   PETER'S  RIVER.                     207
cal characters to connect itself with the Lias of England, and more particularly with that variety so well known in France and Germany under the name of Calcaire coquillier, (muschel kalk of Werner,) which constitutes, as is well known, the upper bed of what was formerly termed the Jura limestone; and which is inferior to the great oolitic series of England, of which it forms as it were the foundation.    This oolitic series must not be considered as including the oolites which have been occasionally observed in the Jura limestone of the French, the zechstein of the Germans, and the magnesian limestone of England. In all these instances the oolite forms but a partial and probably an accidental deposite in a limestone, which is certainly inferior to the variegated (Bunt) sandstone, or new red sandstone formation. We have in this account of the western limestones studiously avoided, until this time, introducing the terms of Alpine and Jura limestones, and comparing them together, as it appears to us well established that the greatest confusion has prevailed from the indiscriminate application of these words.    The truth of this will be acknowledged by those who recollect that, by some geologists, the two names have been used to indicate the same limestone, (at least in certain cases,) while some have removed almost all the Alpine limestone into the transition formations, and others have extended the Jura limestone to make it include the muschel kalk of Germany, which we have good grounds for considering as coeval with the Lias of England. It will, doubtless, be observed by those who have made a particular study of the limestone formations to which we have alluded, that there are some apparent contradictions in our statement.   That for instance, the asche and the oolite observed on the Mississippi cannot be considered as connected together, and with the cavernous limestone of the Was-