150 ROMER’S DESCRIPTION OF THE CHALK 
Quedlinburg to rest immediately upon the lias. The upper 
chalk-marls are much raised on the Schlossberg, at Wernigerode; 
but appear, on the contrary, to have been little affected by the 
last upheaving on the Sudmerberg at Goslar. 
This chalk formation extends in the valley of the Ocker, north- 
wards, as far as Brunswick ; and eastward probably lies imme- 
diately upon the Muschelkalk of the Elm. It rests however, at 
Wahlberg on the Asse; and at Schéppenstedt, upon the lias: an 
insulated portion of the Hils-conglomerate appears to have the 
same substratum at Schandelahe, north-east of Brunswick. 
More to the east we again meet with the chalk formation only 
in the valley of the Elbe itself, close to Dresden. At Oberau the 
gray chalk (plener) and the upper greensand (griinsand) have 
been very beautifully exposed by the construction of the railroad 
tunnel; and besides the plener, arenaceous equivalents of the 
Flammen-mergel, and quader (banded marl and lower green- 
sand), extend on the left bank of the Elbe, as far as Pirna; where 
the lower greensand (quader), with incumbent chalk sandstones 
and subordinate Flammen-mergel (streaked marls), apparently 
constitute the principal mass of the tract called “Saxon Switzer- 
land.” The enormous masses of sandstone have here an almost 
horizontal position, and hence are found to occupy a great ex- 
panse; on the eastern border only they are sometimes raised to a 
vertical position, or even reversed by the action of Plutonic 
rocks. ¥ 
The masses of lower greensand (quader), on the northern border 
of the Riesengebirge, between Goldberg and the Queiss and the 
Neisse, appear likewise to haye been little subjected to disturb- 
ance, and to rest (at least in all the places observed by myself) 
almost horizontally on the salt formation. Still further towards 
the east I myself have not examined the chalk deposit. 
GENERAL PALZONTOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THE CHALK 
FoRMATION. 
We shall now briefly describe the general character of the re- 
mains of the animal and vegetable kingdoms imbedded in the 
chalk formation. 
But few remains of the latter have on the whole descended to 
us, and these have been as yet only partially described: they 
consist of some Alge and several Ferns, a few Cycadee@; but 
