460 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 



the Black Forest by grey limestone with uneven surfaces and 

 extremely rich in Telebratulas and Lamellibranchs, and that 

 the fossiliferous limestone was succeeded by variegated marls 

 with interbedded layers of sandstone and gypsum. But 

 although Merian quite accurately described the strata which 

 were afterwards recognised to be Muschelkalk and Keuper, 

 the special palaeontological literature was scarcely sufficiently 

 advanced to permit of his identification of the age of the 

 rocks, and he regarded them both as equivalents of the Jura 

 limestone. 



In North Germany, Hausmann (1824) and Hoffmann (1823 

 and 1830) elucidated with praiseworthy accuracy the strati- 

 graphical relations of the Bunter Sandstone, Muschelkalk, and 

 the superposed marls and clays with each other and with the 

 lower formation of the Zechstein and the Red Underlyer. 



About the same time, in 1825, the relations of the series 

 were explained in the Upper Rhine district by three geologists 

 who made a journey together Oeynhausen, Dechen, and La 

 Roche. It was in their work that the term " Keuper " was 

 first applied to the bright-coloured marls and clays above the 

 Muschelkalk. The term originated as a corruption in common 

 use in Coburg, and had been suggested by Leopold von Buch 

 in a letter to Merian. 



The rocks of Wurtemberg were described in 1826 by 

 Alberti, 1 primarily with a view to the investigation of their 

 minerals, but the work proved to have a high geological value. 

 It provided an accurate account of the Bunter Muschelkalk 

 and Keuper in that area. In 1831 Merian published his de- 

 scription of the same formations in the southern part of the 

 Black Forest. Still more detailed was the excellent descrip- 

 tion of the Vosges mountains and the adjacent portions of 

 France with which Elie de Beaumont commenced his geo- 

 logical career. 



The eminent Frenchman divided the Sandstone series in 

 the Vosges into three distinct groups: i, The Lower Red 



1 Friedrich August von Alberti, born in 1795 m Stuttgart, studied 

 mining and finance in his native town, began his official career in 1815 at 

 the saltworks at Sulz, and in 1820 was appointed Inspector of Saltworks at 

 Friedrichshall. He bored rock-salt at Schwenningen, and was made a 

 Councillor of Mines in 1836, and from 1852 to 1870 manager of the Fried- 

 richshall Saltworks, where he successfully entered a new shaft. He died 

 in 1878 at Heilbron. 



