230 Hind : Carboniferous Geology. 



forms are present, and we may conclude that s.dim nta y 

 deposition was much more rapid in the Enghsh aea than in 

 Belgium, where the thickness of the beds agrees more neaily 

 with that which obtains in the West of Ireland. 



GERMANY. 



In Germany, probably because the Culm forms th:> base 

 of the Carboniferous rocks, and that it rests on Upper Devonian 

 with Clymenia, it has always been referred to as Lower Car- 

 boniferous, and even considered as the tquivalent of part of 

 the Tournaisian of Belgium. I have hinted in several publica- 

 tions that as the fauna was identical with that of the Pendle- 

 side Series, and also with the Namurien of Belgium, that the 

 Culm of Westphalia and Nassau must be the representative 

 of that Series. 



Last summer, in company with two well-known geologists of 

 this Society, Messrs. Cosmo John3 and Culpin, we had the good 

 fortune to be conducted over the ground by Prof. Kayser, of 

 Marburg, and to make a detailed examination of his extensive 

 collection of fossils from the Culm. 



Unfortunately, nowhere are there any extensive sections 

 in the sequence, and there appear to have been several basins 

 of deposit, in which the lowest bed, as indicated by its fauna, 

 does not always appear to belong to the same zone. 



Often the Culm beds repose on a Diabase of Upper Devon- 

 ian age, which naturally obscures the sequence. The Diabase 

 is intrusive in the Clymenia beds of the Upper Devonian, so 

 that the conditions and sequence are very similar to that 

 which obtains in Devonshire. 



The beds of Culm at Breitscheid are considered to be the 

 lowest of the Series, and they contain : — 



Pvolecanites compvessits. 

 GlypMoceras ere ni stria. 

 Glyphioceras miitabile. 

 Pericycliis virgatas. 

 Brancoceras ornatissimum. 



Triiicoceras hibernicum. 

 Dimorphoceras gilbertsoni. 

 Orthoceras scalare. 

 Orthoceras cf. salvum de Kon 

 and Corals. 



This is a fauna which indicates the highest Visean or Dibicno- 

 phylhim horizon in Great Britain and Ireland with the type fossil 

 of the passage beds between the Dibunopliylliim zone and 

 Pendleside Series. 



The Breitscheid fossils were obtained from impersistent 

 lenticles of limestone, and as far as I can understand, the 

 fauna has been met ^^^th also at Erdbach and Liebstein. 



