STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF FOSSIL FUELS. 443 



Schlaner beds, not less than 600 meters of rock. It is but a short 

 distance below the Lihnaer red beds, belonging to the Rothliegende 

 or lower Permian. Dannenberg calls this upper group " modest " ; 

 usually there are two coal seams, the upper, 0.5 to 1.04 meter and 

 the lower, 0.3 to 0.4 meter thick, parting included in each case. 

 Near Schlan, these seams are separated by an interval of 8 meters 

 but, toward the west, they approach and finally become one seam, 

 0.4 to 1.7 meter thick. The coal is rich in volatile and contains 

 about 14 per cent, of ash. The floor is a bed of sphserosiderite, with 

 finely preserved plant remains. The roof is a Brandschief er, termed 

 " Schwarte," which approaches gas coal in composition but has no 

 practical value. It has yielded a rich harvest of crustaceans, fish 

 and Stegocephalus. 



Lipoid,^® who believed that the Schlaner beds are Permian, has 

 given the section of this bed as exposed near Schlan ; it is : 



(i) "Schwarte," 8 inches; (2) coal, i foot 8 inches; (3) clay, 

 3 inches; (4) coal, i foot 8 inches; (5) clay, not measured. This 

 " Schwarte " is tender, black-brown Brandschief er, so rich in bitu- 

 men that it ignites readily. Lipoid asserts that it distinguishes Per- 

 mian coal from that of the Coal Measures. 



There are comparatively few exposures in the middle of the 

 basin ; borings, reported by Katzer,^^ show that the upper coal group 

 is present on the western side. The borings begin in Rothliegende ; 

 the first reached biotite granite at 74-5 meters, that being the country 

 rock. A coal seam, 0.49 meter, was pierced at 71.8 meters. In 

 another boring, a seam of "Schwarte" and coal, 1.06 meter, was 

 pierced at 89.59 meters from the surface, and was identified with 

 that of the first boring. It underlies a clay shale and rests on dark 

 clay shale, containing streaks of coal. An argillaceous sandstone 

 at 17 meters from the surface contains fragments of Araucarites 

 and appears to be in the undoubted Rothliegende. The boring 

 ended at 23 meters below the coal seam, but did not reach the gran- 

 ts M. V. Lipoid, " Das Steinkohlengebiet in nordwestlichen Theile der 

 Prager Kreises in Bohmen," jahrb. k. k. geol. Reichsan., Band XII., 1861-2, 

 PP- 507-509. 



39 F. Katzer, " Zur Kenntniss der Permschichten der Rakonitzer Stein- 

 kohlenablagerung," Verh. k. k. gcoL Reichsan., Jahrg., 1904, pp. 291-293. 



