452 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 



In the Eastern Alps true Carboniferous limestone was 

 determined in Carinthia by Buch in 1824, but only received 

 the vague name of "Transitional Limestone." De Koninck 

 described the fauna of this limestone in 1873. In the Gail 

 Valley and other localities of the Carnic Alps, the massive 

 limestone is succeeded by dark shales and thin beds of lime- 

 stone, wherein Tietze and Stache (1872) demonstrated the 

 presence of fossil Foraminifera (Fusulina) in great abundance. 

 The significance of this discovery was not fully realised until 

 a few years later, when it was found that in Russia the true 

 Carboniferous limestone with Productus giganteus is succeeded 

 in the Moscow basin by limestones with Spirifer Mosquensis, 

 and these are succeeded by a massive complex of strata com- 

 prising, both in the Ural and in the Donetz basins, coal-seams 

 interbedded with massive Fusulina limestones. From the 

 palaeontological contents of this younger series in the Russian 

 basins of deposition, V. von M oiler concluded in the year 1875 

 that it was the equivalent of the Productive Coal-formation in 

 Western Europe. Thus it was demonstrated that the Carbon- 

 iferous system contained a definite palaeontological sequence 

 of extensive distribution. 



In North America the Carboniferous formation has a wide 

 surface outcrop, and as a rule consists of a Lower marine 

 division (Sub-Carboniferous group) and an Upper productive 

 division with coal-seams (Coal Measures). But in the Western 

 States, especially in Illinois, Nebraska, and Missouri, beds of 

 Fusulina limestone frequently replace the productive deposits 

 or occur in alternation with them. 



The Productive formation of the Carboniferous system has, 

 on account of the great commercial value of the coal-seams, 

 been examined in the very greatest detail not only in European 

 lands but in all parts of the world. Survey maps of the coal- 

 seams have been prepared on the largest scale, and afford 

 evidence of the manifold diversity in the stratigraphical rela- 

 tions of the sandstone, conglomerates, shales, and coal-seams, 

 and of the repeated tectonic disturbances to which in many 

 districts these strata have been subjected since their original 

 deposition as horizontal sheets of deposit. 



In Germany the Saar basin has been mapped by Von 

 Dechen and Nasse, the Westphalian Coal-formation by Lottner 

 (1868), and the Carboniferous deposits in the Halle district 

 have been surveyed and described by Laspeyres (1875). 



