a7id their Connexion with Acidulous Springs. 553 



kel, presents a wedge-shaped mass of variegated sandstone, in 

 a nearly vertical position, which has been pushed through ' the 

 muschelkalk ; and whose masses, which were formerly super- 

 imposed, present the remarkable circumstance of a distorted 

 and broken stratification. The gaseous springs, on the south- 

 ern slope, have thrown up rocks which almost indicate the vici- 

 nity of transition formations, and which occur nowhere else on 

 this plain. More to the east, where this covering of muschel- 

 kalk gives place to the variegated sandstone, we still see here 

 and there on its edges the traces of emanations of carbonic acid. 

 This is the case with the mineral springs of Godelheim near 

 Hoxter, in the valley of Weser, the salt springs of Carlshafen, 

 and the acidulous springs of Hof-Geismar near Volkmarsen, &c. 

 In like manner, at the place where the Keuper forms a thick 

 covering over the muschelkalk, on the northern edge of the 

 plain of Paderborn, we also find similar appearances, even to a 

 great distance. Everywhere the carbonic acid makes its escape 

 in the places where the muschelkalk has perforated in islets the 

 covering of the Keuper. Thus we may mention the slopes 

 of the muschelkalk mountain near Schieder, and of Wobel 

 near Pyrmont, the environs of Calldorf to the south-west of 

 Rindeln, where numerous shghtly acidulous and saline springs 

 issue on the declivities of a limestone islet. So also, near 

 Vlotho in the Clusenberg, near Zalzuffeln, and in the upper 

 valley of the Zalze, &c. We might, therefore, compare the 

 great country situated on the left bank of the Weser, in the 

 direction from Carlshafen to Vlotho, as far as the slope of 

 the Teutoburg-Wald, to the surface of a sieve, the holes of 

 which that still remain open, allow the gases to escape which 

 are disengaged in the depths of the volcanic foci by unknown 

 means. 



Councillor Hausmann seems not to have had a clear idea of 

 these singular circumstances, when he appears inclined to attri- 

 bute the origin of the acidulous springs of Westphalia to a solu- 

 tion of the protocarbonate of iron, which is very sparsely disse- 

 minated in the marls of the variegated sandstone *. We cannot 

 easily see how this explanation is applicable to other countries of 

 Germany, which are distant from modern volcanic formations. 



• See Bemerkungen in W. A. Ficker's Driburger Taschenbiich, 1816. 



