48 Geological Society. 



being the most abundant) : — Fishes, 6 or 7 genera, (Dapedium, 

 Clupaea,Cyprinus, &c.) — Pterodactylus — Crustacea, 2 species. Ammo- 

 nites, 1 1 species, of which about two-thirds are figured in Sowerby's 

 Mineral Conchology — Belemnites, 12 species, Scaphites, Nautili and 

 numerous other univalves as well as bivalves common to the English 

 lias. Some of the higher beds are described as containing Trochi, 

 Helicinae, and Spiriferae. Pentacrinites Briureus of the English lias 

 is likewise stated to be of common occurrence, and that a species of 

 Fungia, a genus of corals hitherto unobserved in the lias of England, 

 also occurs. 



Inferior Oolite. — The inferior oolite of Germany is next described, as 

 being quite analogous to that of the Hebrides and the coast of York- 

 shire, viz., a great arenaceous formation, for the most part highly fer- 

 ruginous. It contains many characteristic British fossils, and uni- 

 formly caps the lias throughout VVirtemberg, Bavaria, Hanover and 

 Westphalia, and in some parts (near Banz and in Franconia) it 

 passes up into an iron -shot, true oolite {Oolitischer eisen-stein of 

 Miinster). 



The ferruginous grits of this formation, it is stated, are not to be 

 confounded with the lias grits, from which they are clearly distin- 

 guished both by fossils and superposition. 



A very detailed section is then given of all the strata exposed 

 in the gorge, called the Porta Westphalica, by whicii the Weser 

 escapes into the plains of Minden, and where all the sub-formations 

 of the oolitic series, consisting of shales, grits, bands of oolite, 8cc. are 

 well exposed. The beds are here considerably inclined, and include 

 representatives of the English series, from the top of the lias to the 

 shales of the age of the Oxford clay. All this system of the inferior and 

 middle oolite, passes, it is observed, beneath the Biickeburg range of 

 hills, containing sandstone and calcareous shale with workable seams 

 of coal, which group the author agrees with M. Hoffmann in refer- 

 ring to the upper system of the oolitic series, and states that it con- 

 tains many marine shells ; whilst he distinctly shows that it is not 

 the green-sand, of which there are clear sections in the immediate 

 neighbourhood. 



Middle Oolite. — Jura Kalk, S^c. — The mineralogical characters of 

 the middle oolite of central and southern Germany are pointed out as 

 being essentially different from those of rocks of the same age in 

 Westphalia and Hanover : so that instead of the shales, grits, &c. just 

 described, they consist in one part of compact, cream-coloured lime- 

 stone, and in another of dolomite. In Franconia (the great region of 

 bears' caves), in the hills opposite Banz, and in many other places, the 

 dolomite usually caps the limestone, the latter containing the greater 

 number of the fossils. In these groups and in the inferior oolite. 

 Count Miinster has detected nearly all the species of Ammonites 

 figured from this part of the series in the Mineral Conchology, with 

 many other new species ; and has also procured at least sixty species 

 of Scyphia from the middle Jura kalk, and many other zoophytes now 

 figured in Goldfiiss. 



Solenhofen Slate. — The Jura limestone or middle oolite is observed 



within 



