FORMATION OF NORTHERN GERMANY. 121 
ochre yellow, calcareous, sometimes crystalline matrix. This 
mass is separated into considerable beds, which here also form a 
flat trough (mulde), with beds on the south inclining northward, 
while towards the north they have a southern inclination. This 
deposit has been considered by Boué as belonging to Jurassic, 
by Kéferstein to the tertiary period, and was first referred to the 
chalk by Hausmann. 
We find also some members of the chalk formation near 
Wernigerode, where, on the Schlossberg and Galgenberg we 
meet with some conglomerated, tolerably compact sandstones 
in beds from 1 to 3 feet thick, which are separated from each 
other by softer masses of marl. The same rock is likewise ex- 
posed near Altenrode, where, not unfrequently, small nests of 
pitch-coal occur in it. 
The masses of the Plattenberg near Blankenburg also belong 
to this division, consisting sometimes of a compact slaty, yel- 
lowish or brownish sandstone, frequently separated into glo- 
bular masses of 1 to 2 inches in diameter; sometimes of a scaly, 
more dense and compact sandstone, passing into a coarse con- 
glomerate. 
The Salzberg near Quedlinburg consists of the very same 
rocks as the hill above described near Gehrden; and we find 
the very same fossils at both places. 
There can be little doubt that the adjacent Teufelsmauer is of 
a similar age throughout its whole extent; it is formed of a com- 
pact sandstone, with a siliceous basis, frequently separable into 
flags; and on the northern declivity we meet among the fossils 
with an Jnoceramus, calling to mind J. Cripsii, Pygorhynchus 
rostratus, and Crednerie, which are however likewise frequent 
at Plattenberg. 
From the absence of distinct fossils it is far more difficult to 
determine the relations of this deposit in the so-called “ Saxon- 
Switzerland ;” those considerable masses of sandstone, which have 
there an almost horizontal stratification, are separated in the de- 
clivities of several sections of the valleys into upper and lower, 
by a distinctly stratified sandy marl, sometimes of a green co- 
lour, which is perfectly similar in its mineralogical character to 
the streaked marls (flammen-mergel*) of our neighbourhood. 
* Flammen, besides its original signification, “to flame,” is said in the 
Dictionaries to be applied to the process of watering silks, &c, by which an 
appearance is produced of waving (flame-like?) stripes or streaks.—Trans. 
