July 2J, 1876] 



NATURE 



269 



enable us to bridge over the gaps and fill in the blanks 

 which are unfortunately at present so numerous in the 

 geological record. The work that has been done in this 

 direction of late on the borderland between the Carboni- 

 ferous and Permian formations promises before long to 

 be productive of very important results. Even in so 

 small an area as Great Britain the order of events that 

 happened between the depositions of these two groups 

 must have varied very much from place to place, as will 

 appear from the following table, in which some of the 

 more important sections are shown in a condensed 

 form : — 



Whatever be the value of the identifications ventured 

 on in the above table, it serves at least to establish one 

 fact ; that, in the interval which it covers, there are at 

 some spots two stratigraphical breaks, at others only one, 

 and at others, perhaps, none at all ; for in the North 

 Staffordshire instance it is very likely that we have not a 

 mere case of deceptive conformity, but may be a true 

 passage. There would be nothing strange in this if we 

 were dealing with the equivalent deposits of the whole 

 world, or even of a large continent, but the fact that 

 such a variety of changes went on within so small an 

 area is worth notice, for it shows how variable were 

 the physical conditions of what may be called the 

 Permo-Carboniferous period ; suggests to us that its 

 oscillations, important as they are locally, may have been 

 only local ; and so paves the way for a favourable reception 

 of any fresh discoveries that point to an absence of any 

 break between these two formations, which are with us for 



the most part so sharply marked off from one another. 

 And indeed our home experience is quite sufficient to 

 suggest the possibility of such cases turning up ; setting 

 aside the North Staffordshire instance, which is not be- 

 yond question, the general lithological character of the 

 Upper Coal Measures and their markedly red colour 

 seem to point to a commencement of what may be called 

 Permian conditions before the close of the Carboniferous 

 period, and to establish something of a bond of union 

 between the two formations, in spite of the unconformities 

 which locally separate them. And when we go beyond 

 our home circle we soon meet with cases where a passage 

 from Carboniferous into Permian seems to exist ; such, 

 for instance, as those described by Dr. Dawson in Nova 

 Scotia (" Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." xxx. 209), and by Dr. 

 Toula in Spitzbergen ("Leonhard and Geinitz' Jahrbuch," 

 1875, p. 225). In the monograph before us. Dr. Feist- 

 mantel treats of what he believes to be a similar instance 

 in the coal-fields of Bohemia. 



The coal-bearing beds of that country and their asso- 

 ciated strata are broken up into a number of detached 

 basins, and the exact correlation of the members of the 

 different patches is, of course, open to some uncertainty ; 

 but Dr. Feistmantel thinks he can establish the following 

 general order of succession, and three main sub-divi- 

 sions : — 



fRed sandstone, with Araucarites Schrolliamis. 

 P J Strata, with Carboniferous plants. 

 ■ \ Bituminous shale (Schwarte), with fish ; very few 

 (, indistinct traces of plants. 

 ' Strata, with Carboniferous plants. 

 Gas-shale of Niirschaw, fish, and abundance of 



Carboniferous plants. 

 Strata of Radovenz, with Carboniferous plants. 

 Red sandstone, with Araucarites, on the north- 

 east Bohemian Basin. 



A. Strata, with Carboniferous plants. 



Of these sub-divisions, A yields 232 reputed species of 

 plants, of which lor pass up into B ; all are species 

 usually looked upon as Carboniferous. But as we ascend 

 in the measures, there is a gradual decrease in the plant 

 remains, specially among the arborescent forms, which 

 disappear in the Upper Permian, Stigmaria Ficoides 

 alone surviving to the last. The animal remains of A are 

 five in number and rare : they comprise a scorpion and 

 spider, a grasshopper, and two crustaceans ; all are con- 

 fined to the group. 



Among the beds of the groups B and C the author 

 lays special stress on the gas-shale of Niirschaw and the 

 Schwarte, the animal remains of which he describes as 

 characteristic Permian forms ("exquisit permische Thier- 

 reste "), and he infers from the intercalation of these beds 

 with others containing only Carboniferous plants, that 

 no hard line can be drawn between the Permian and Car- 

 boniferous formations. This conclusion, to say the least, 

 rests on somewhat slender evidence ; the genera of fish, 

 quoted in his lists, on which we must mainly rely, are 

 only seven in number, and the species are determined in 

 four cases only ; of these, one comes from a deposit the 

 Permian age of which may be admitted, some from beds 

 reckoned Permian by some authors and Carboniferous by 

 others, and some genera are common to both formations. 

 Such an amount of evidence can scarcely be accepted as 

 conclusive. There is also a little inconsistency in the 



B.^ 



