Dr. Wheelton Hind — The Calm of W. Germany. 471 



D. W. Wolterstorff has described the Culm of Magdeburg, and 

 his figures of fossils show that the fauna is identical with that of 

 Herborn. I suspect, however, that he has there also the fauna of 

 a higher zone, for I think it probable that the Goniatite he figures 

 as Dimorphoceras Tornquisti may be either G. bilingue, G. PhilUpsi, 

 or G. reticulatum. 



The presence and persistence of the Pendleside or Culm fauna over 

 Western Europe, and the fact that its zone fossils always succeed each 

 other in normal sequence, affords most certain and definite evidence 

 for the correlation of the Pendleside Series and the Culm of Devonshire 

 with the Namurien of Belgium and the Culm of Germany, and that 

 the view that the Culm beds of Germany are below the Visean and are 

 the homotaxial equivalents of the Tournaisian must, on palseontological 

 grounds, be revised. 



When discussing the question on the ground I found that the view 

 that Posidonomya Becheri was a very unsatisfactory zonal form and 

 that it occurred again and again at various horizons was strongly 

 ui'ged, and certain stratigraphical facts were also cited in support of 

 the view that the German Culm-measures were of Tournaisian or 

 ante-Visean age. 



In the first place it is known that P. Becheri occurs low down in 

 the Yoredale Series of Wensleydale in black shale above the Hardraw 

 Scar Limestone, but the associated fauna is a Yisean one and not 

 a Pendleside or Culm fauna, and it may be said that P. Becheri, with 

 the peculiar Cephalopods which constitute the Pendleside fauna, has 

 a very narrow horizontal distribution indeed. But the case does not 

 depend on this fossil at all. I rely absolutely on the Cephalopod 

 succession and the fauna as a whole. It is most improbable that 

 such highly organized forms as Proleeanites compressus or Nomisvioceras 

 rotiforme, with their peculiar sutures, genera which only existed for 

 very brief periods as measured by vertical succession, should have 

 characterized different series of rocks in the British-Belgian area and 

 in Germany. 



In 1904" (Geol. Mag., Dec. Ill, Vol. I, pp. 272-6) Dr. Parkinson, 

 on palaeontological grounds, definitely made out the Culm of South 

 Germany to be below the horizon of the Visean division of the 

 Carboniferous Limestone. I was shown the stratigraphical evidence 

 in the field by Professor Kayser, whom I beg to thank for his lucid 

 explanations and for permission to study the whole of the palteonto- 

 logical material on which the views were based. In the neighbourhood 

 of Konigsberg, north of Giessen, are outcrops of a slaty breccia, with 

 some limestones, which yield the following fauna : — 



Productus giganteus. Cyathophyllum. 



P. piuicfatus. Cyathaxonia. 



P. semireticulatiis . Spirifer cf. bisulcatus. 



Orfhiitetes crenistria. Chonetes papyraceus. 



Corals. Cyclophyllum. 



This is a fauna of a high Visean phase, undoubtedly and totally 

 distinct from any of the hitherto known Culm faunas of Germany. 

 There is, however, no section which shows the relation of this fauna 



