230 Professor Hoffmann on the Geological Investigations 



liar features are not accidental ; the Alps with the Jura, and 

 the Western Carpathians with their subordinate chains, form 

 another similar mass ; and it is these which Buch first of all 

 distinguished by the very appropriate name of Geognostical 

 Sgstems of a country. By the application of this geognostical 

 division to Germany (including Switzerland), Buch thought it 

 was necessary to distinguish four geognostical systems. Of 

 these we have already mentioned two : the north-eastern sys- 

 tem, and the system of the Alps. The two others are : the 

 Khine system, which includes the parallel chains of the Black 

 Forest, of the Spessart, of the Vosges, of the Hart, of the 

 Iiilly ranges of Lothringia, and of Swabia, and which has a 

 direction very nearly from S. to N. ; and the system of the 

 Netherlands, to which belongs the great mass of the slate- 

 rocks that are cut through by the Rhine between Bingen and 

 Bonn, and with it likewise the coal-formation basins of France, 

 Belgium, Aix-la-Chapelle, and on the Ruhr in Westphalia on 

 the north, and on the Nahe and Saar in the Palatinate on the 

 south. This system has nearly the same strike as the Alps, 

 viz. from SW. to NE., and it is very decidedly and abruptly 

 bounded on the INE. in Hesse and Waldeck. I believe that, 

 in order to complete the delineation of Germany, a fifth sys- 

 tem may be distinguished, which is evidently different from 

 those already noticed, but which exhibits also nearly the 

 strike of the systems of the Alps and Netherlands. Its prin- 

 cipal mass forms the ranges of the Erzgehirge, which run 

 from SW. to NE. ; the Bohemian Mittelgebirge, exactly paral- 

 lel to the last ; and finally, in the SW., the Fichielgebirge, 

 which descend rapidly to the valley of the Maine. 



The knowledge of these remarkable systems, into which 

 all other accurately known countries may also be decom- 

 posed, is evidently an extremely important matter in form- 

 ing a judgment as to the alterations which the crust of 

 our earth has undergone ; and the first proposal of this 

 view is one of the most essential steps which have been 

 made in our science in recent times.* The first explana- 

 tion of this fact is entirely due to Leopold von Buch ; 



♦ Lconhard's Tasc/ttfntMC^, 1824,p. 501j 



