Chalk Formation of Denmark. 57 



ters sometime into the composition of a sandstone, are con- 

 nected with it. This formation has partly been considered as 

 analogous to the old coal formation, and described as such, 

 partly as belonging to the real brown coal formation, (plastic 

 clay.) But it agrees neither with the one northeother. The strik- 

 ing difference that none of those rocks which in Britain imme- 

 diately cover the coal formation are found here ; that all traces 

 of lepidodendron and syringodendron are wanting, while im- 

 pressions of small ferns, and leaves, and branches of dicotyle- 

 donous plants are frequent, distinguishes it sufficiently from the 

 older coal formation. The frequent repetition of parallel beds 

 of coal, the occurrence of ironstone, and the antecession to 

 green sand and chalk, exclude certainly the argile plastique. 

 It is, however, only with great difficulty that the relative si- 

 tuation of these different members is ascertained. An enor- 

 mous waste covers the whole ; sand, loam, pebbles, and large 

 rolled masses of primitive and secondary rocks are heaped up 

 to a considerable height upon all these formations. Seldom 

 have the rivers cut through this upper bed, and only a few de- 

 tached spots furnish an occasion for the geologist to make his 

 observations, and to try to combine by analogy what nature 

 does not allow him to connect directly. It is not my intention to 

 enter more minutely into the facts respecting this formation, 

 which is reserved for another paper. It is sufficient here to 

 mention what secondary formations, anterior to the chalk, form 

 the southernmost point of the Scandinavian peninsula. 



On the Danish island of Saltholm near Copenhagen, and 

 on the opposite coast of Scaane at Limeham, a limestone oc- 

 curs, which belongs to the chalk formation, and either replaces 

 the chalk-marl, or is interposed between that and the chalk. 

 It consists of a grayish-white limestone, which in some places 

 is hard enough to be polished, in others already approaches to 

 chalk ; it contains beds of smoke-gray flint in nodules, with a 

 splintery fracture, and passing into hornstone. Of fossils it con- 

 tains a flat corallite, which seems to be the characteristic pe- 

 trifaction of this bed ; besides several echinites occur, and seve- 

 ral terebratulse. On the island of Saltholm these beds dip 

 gently to the south-west, and the line of its bearing is from Salt- 

 holm to Limeham south-east, as it occurs on both places almost 



