310 Proceedings of the British Association for 18»50. 



was disposed to think that parts of it (particularly near Eb- 

 reville), will eventually be assigned to the palaeozoic deposits 

 also ; but the engagement to return to the meeting of the 

 British Association prevented the completion of researches 

 to establish this point. In the meantime, he calls attention 

 to the importance of the discovery of lower carboniferous 

 fossils in rocks of so crystalline a nature as those of* the 

 chain of the Forez. It has long been known that small but 

 true coal fields occur in many parts of central France, some 

 of which the author described long ago, in conjunction with 

 Sir Charles Lyell. But at that time no geologist could have 

 dared to think that any portion of the crystalline or slaty 

 schist on which these coal-fields reposed unconformably could 

 also pertain to the carboniferous system. Yet such is the 

 fact ; for independent of this discovery in the chain of the 

 Forez, M. de Verneuil had long ago observed that the " pro- 

 ducti," and other fossils found at Regny, near Roanne, in a 

 system of hills parallel to the Forez, and of very similar 

 composition, unquestionably placed such rocks in the carbo- 

 niferous or mountain limestone group of the carboniferous 

 system. These facts, as well as the occurrence of numerous 

 true carboniferous producti at Sable, in Brittany — where 

 these rocks are also unconformable to overlying coal-fields — 

 have induced M. Elie de Beaumont to renounce an opinion 

 which he formerly entertained in considering the inclined for- 

 mations as belonging to a diff'erent natural group from those 

 which are horizontal. In their exploration of the palaeozoic 

 rocks of Germany, Professor Sedgwick and Sir R. Murchison 

 long ago indicated, that the true carboniferous limestone, with 

 large producti, near Hof, had been raised up conformably 

 with underlying Devonian and Silurian rocks — [see Trans. 

 Geol. Sac.) — the adjacent Bohemian coal being horizontal. 

 Although this indisputable fact — since confirmed by a sub- 

 sequent visit to the tract — was at the time received in- 

 credulously, it is now sustained by independent evidences in 

 France. The conclusion, therefore, is, that very powerful 

 continental dislocations have operated, both in Germany and 

 France, after the close of the deposits of the mountain or 

 carboniferous limestone, and before the accumulation of the 



