STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 533 



scription of the Tertiary formations in the Rhineland. The 

 discovery of the famous Dinotherium skull at Eppelsheim by 

 Klipstein and Loup induced Klipstein (1836) to contribute a 

 more careful stratigraphical account of the strata in the Mainz 

 basin, and he paralleled the bone-bearing sands of Eppelsheim 

 with the gypsum of Montmartre, and the limestone strata 

 underlying the bone-bearing sands with the coarse lime- 

 stone beds of Paris. In the following year, Bronn tried to 

 prove that the Eppelsheim sands belonged to a higher horizon 

 and were comparable with the Middle Tertiary of the Vienna 

 basin, and he likewise assumed a Miocene age for the other 

 sands near Alzey, " although," he said, " the characteristic 

 species of the clays in the Vienna basin are absent." 



The first accurate and detailed account of the succession of 

 strata in the Mainz basin was given by Sandberger in 1853. 

 He sub-divided the series into nine well-marked palaeontological 

 zones which he compared with the " stages " of Tertiary strata 

 in France and Belgium ; the zones in ascending order were : 

 (i) Marine sands near Alzey; (2) Septarian clay and "Cyrena" 

 marls with occurrences of brown-coal; (3) Limestone of Hock- 

 heim with land-snails ; (4) "Cerithia" limestone of Florsheim 

 and Oppenheim ; (5) "Litorella" limestone; (6) Clays and 

 shales with brown-coal ; (7) Leaf sandstone ; (8) Fresh-water 

 sands of Eppelsheim with remains of Dinotherium, Hipparion, 

 etc. ; (9) Marine sands of Cassel. Sandberger compared the 

 Alzey sands and the Septarian clay with Dumont's Tongrien 

 and Rupelien stages ; the littoral and brackish-water deposits, 

 from Hockheim limestone to the leaf-sandstone, he regarded as 

 the equivalents of the marine Miocene strata in the Aqui- 

 tanian and Vienna basins, and of the system Bolderien in 

 Belgium ; while he placed the bone-sand of Eppelsheim and 

 the Cassel sands in Lower Pliocene, as an equivalent of the 

 system Diestien in Belgium. 



The sub-divisions proposed by Sandberger for the Tertiary 

 formation in the Mainz basin have undergone very little sub- 

 sequent modification. The chief alteration was made in 1854 

 by Hamilton, when he proved that the Hockheim limestone 

 was not an independent horizon, but a local intercalation 

 in the "Cerithia" strata. In 1883, Lepsius published a geo- 

 graphical description of the Mainz basin; and the first 

 volume of the Geologic von Deutschland^ by the same author 

 (1892), affords a general survey of all the literature that has 



