534 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY, 



appeared on this subject since the publication of Sandberger's 

 memoir. 



The Tertiary localities in North Germany were briefly de- 

 scribed in the early years of the nineteenth century by several 

 palaeontologists, more particularly by Count Miinster (1835). 

 A number of the typical fossils were described by Goldfuss; 

 Zimmermann described the Hamburg occurrences, and Boll 

 reported on the Mecklenburg locality ; but all these authors 

 expressed themselves more or less indefinitely regarding the 

 precise age of the Tertiary fossils and strata. 



An important work on the North German Tertiary deposits 

 was contributed in 1847 by Beyrich. This acute observer 

 proved the identity of many of the fossils in Mark Branden- 

 burg and in the Septarian clay of North Germany with fossils 

 of the clays near Antwerp (Rupelieii). Thus a definite horizon 

 was fixed in the North German succession, and in 1853 Bey- 

 rich gave a complete account of the paleeontological and 

 lithological sequence of Tertiary deposits as an Introductory 

 to his Monograph of the Conchylia in the North German 

 Tertiary Rock-Deposits. It was made evident that the North 

 German "Miocene" facies differed in many respects from 

 the French and Austrian Miocene, and contained a greater 

 number of fossil forms which had continued from older 

 horizons. 



The oldest North German Tertiary fauna was shown by 

 Beyrich to be that of the Magdeburg sands, the equivalent of 

 the Lower Tongrien in Belgium. This horizon is limited in 

 North Germany to the area between Magdeburg and Egeln. 

 Above it, the Septarian clay follows as the equivalent of the 

 Belgium Rupelien, and Beyrich included in the same horizon 

 the Stern berg strata and the Stettin sand. In 1853 Beyrich 

 regarded the Tongrien and Rupelmond system, in agreement 

 with D'Orbigny, as Lower Miocene, but in 1854 he proposed 

 that this horizon, which was sometimes referred to Upper 

 Eocene, sometimes to Lower Miocene, in the Paris basin and 

 Belgian areas should be distinguished as an independent for- 

 mation under the name of Oligocene. He sub-divided the 

 new formation in three groups, the Lower Oligocene com- 

 prising the brown-coal deposits of the southern and eastern 

 parts of Germany and the North German amber deposits with 

 the rich flora worked out by Goeppert and Conwentz. To 

 Middle OHgocene, Beyrich assigned the Alzey sands, the 



