452 STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF FOSSIL FUELS. 



Neuhilbersdorf, embraces about a square kilometer. The ground 

 is full of petrified trees ; beside prostrate, always fractured stems, 

 large and small stems are seen as vertical stumps, apparently in the 

 original place of growth. Silicified stems are shown at several 

 places near Chemnitz. They are embedded in the marly beds of the 

 Middle Rothliegende, on which, apparently, they grew. 



He cannot accept the opinion that the trees while living were 

 enveloped suddenly by the falling tuff and that they were silicified 

 afterward. The plants are without bark and are broken across the 

 stems. He believes that silification began during life of the trees 

 and that it caused their death. The microscopic structure is as per- 

 fect as in living plants. All are conifers — Araiicarioxylon, to which 

 the leaves and twigs of Walchia seem to belong. Stems, 7, lo and 

 20 meters long, are in the Chemnitz museum. 



Thuringer Wold. — The Permian contains coal seams of work- 

 able thickness at several localities in Germany. For the most part, 

 they have little interest, but the conditions in the Thuringian forest 

 should be noticed. This area, bordering on Bavaria at the south, 

 was visited several times by Murchison,^^ who states that in some 

 valleys on each side of the Central Range there occur occasional 

 outcrops of gray and dark colored shaly rocks, containing plant 

 remains and at times seams of coal. These he regarded as belong- 

 ing to the Upper Coal Measures of Germany. The coal is most 

 abundant at the southerly end of the area, where it has been reached 

 by shafts, which pass through a great thickness of Rothliegende. 

 These Carboniferous beds were formed, he believes, during tranquil 

 deposition, in marked contrast with the Permian beds, which were 

 laid down during a time of great disturbance, marked by extrusion 

 of much igneous material and by powerful translation of broken 

 materials from preexisting rocks. The coal-bearing deposits pass 

 under cover toward the north. 



Beyschlag,*'^ writing many years afterward, stated that study of 

 the central portion of the region is difficult as no good section is 

 exposed. Eruptive rocks are abundant and sedimentary rocks 



46 R. I. Murchison, " Siluria," 3d ed., 1859, P- 332. 



47 Beyschlag, " Geologische Uebersichkarte des Thuringer Walden," 

 Zeitschr. d. d. Geol. Gcsells, Band 47, 1895, pp.. 596-607. 



