364 Rev. Dr. Irving — On the Younger Red Rocks. 



whole series implied in the name " poikilitic," which I had (from a 

 too limited sphere of observation) previously adopted for the North 

 Midlands, as Prof. Phillips had done for the Severn country in his 

 work on the Geology of Oxford, etc. Observations made in the 

 Alps and information obtained from the writings of Giimbel and 

 other Continental geologists, were communicated to this section at 

 the Southampton meeting in 1882, and published in fuller form 

 the same year (Geol. Mag. November, 1882). In that paper it is 

 shown that the Alpine Trias admits of direct correlation with the 

 Trias of Germany by means of fossil-contents (the horizons of the 

 Muschelkalk being very definitely determined by many characteristic 

 fossils common to both areas), while the Permian or Dyas (the Trias 

 in part of von Hauer) is closely tied on to the true Trias by the 

 transition series of Giimbel (plant-remains in the sandstones at 

 Neumarkt near Bozen, fauna of the Bellerophon Limestone). The 

 importance of further investigation of the true stratigraphical relation 

 of the Dyas and Trias of Germany, and (as involved in this question) 

 the true position of the Bunterschiefer of Murchison, were thus brought 

 into prominence. This investigation (with the assistance of Prof. 

 Geinitz, Prof. Eitter von Hauer, Prof. Liebe, and other German 

 geologists) I was able to make in the summer of 1883. The results 

 were given to the world in two papers, one " On the Dyas and 

 Trias of Central Europe, and the true Divisional-line of those two 

 Systems" (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. August, 1884); the other on 

 "The Permian-Trias Question" (Geol. Mag. July, 1884). Those 

 two papers were received with expressions of the highest appre- 

 ciation by so great an authority as Prof. Marcou, and my results 

 were confirmed by the work of Geinitz and Dittmarsch in the 

 following year (Nova Acta Acad. LeopoldincB, 1885) — "On the limits 

 of the Zechstein Formation and of the Dyas in General," by H. B. 

 Geinitz. The contention that the so-called Bunterschiefer was an 

 uppermost member of the Trias, was thus refuted all along the line ; 

 and a stratigraphical break between the Dyas and Trias in the 

 German area was thus established on physical as well as on 

 palgeontological evidence sufficiently strong to carry conviction to 

 the mind of Prof. Hull, who had previously given his adherence 

 to the view implied in the Permian Trias of Murchison. 



The chief results down to 1884 would thus appear to be : — 



1. The more complete establishment of the Permian or Dyas as 

 an integral and independent system, though subordinated on palgeon- 

 tological grounds to the Carboniferous, to which it is in some 

 localities [e.g. in the Warwickshire area) conformable, though more 

 often unconformable, as in Notts, in the North-Eastern area (where 

 the Eothliegendes is almost, if not entirely, absent), in Thiiringen, 

 in Saxony (Zwickau and other places in the basin of the Erzgebirge). 

 This differentiation has been further confirmed by the later work of 

 Mr. De Eance in the Midlands, even for the Warwickshire area. 



2. The existence of a great difference in the relation of the 

 Permian and Trias to the adjacent palaeozoic and archcean land, the 

 coarser detritus of the Permian breccias (both in the German and 



