﻿Dr. Feistmantel — Bohemian Coal Fauna and Passage-Beds. 119 



well-known Prof. F. Romer of the University of Breslau, that he 

 considers the Niirschan Gas-coal as coiTesponding with a similar 

 deposit at Klein-Neundorf in Silesia, which is indeed so. 



Very soon after Herr Star's paper, with an amount of facts without 

 arguments, a simply but clearly written article by the Bohemian 

 local geologist. Prof. Krejci, appeared,^ wherein the Professor, after 

 many long years of experience and practice in Bohemian geology, 

 has explained the matter in a most natural way. 



While acknowledging the abilities of all the authors, who have 

 written on the subject, he yet for good reasons cannot concur either 

 in Herr Star's or Herr Weiss's opinions, and he adopts that view 

 which I have illustrated so repeatedly. 



He says in the conclusion of his paper (I give the translation) : 

 " The Bohemian Coal-formation, and especially the Pilsen basin, 

 forms therefore a connected series of strata, of which the Lower 

 portion (Radnitz, Kladno, Pilsen, etc.) is parallel with the Saar- 

 briicken Series, the higher portion (Rakonitz Gas-coal) with the 

 Cuseler and Leebach Series, while the Niirschan Gas-coal, however, 

 has to be put at the base of the Kohlenrothliegendes of the Saarbriick 

 basin, or it is analogous with the Otweiler Series,^ which classifica- 

 tion may decide the present state of the question about the age of 

 the Niirschan Gas-coal." 



This result is the same which I had arrived at in my later papers, 

 and this paper of Prof. Krejci was the first energetical contradiction 

 of the opinions of those gentlemen I mentioned above. 



But a still more important expression of opinion in that waj'- 

 is Dr. A. Fritsch's presentation of his results of the examinations of 

 the Fauna from the Gas-coals before the last Glasgow meeting. Dr. 

 A. Fritsch declared the animals to be mostly of Permian character, 

 and these beds as passage-beds between Carboniferous and Permian 

 in Bohemia, just as I did, and as Prof. Krejci stated again, and this 

 after duly considering both kinds of organisms. 



Thus Herr Stur and Herr Weiss had a very short time the satis- 

 faction of having contradicted my views, as they have been so 

 evidently re-established by our best local geologists and paleon- 

 tologists, and we can always suppose that good local geologists, who 

 are also excellently acquainted with all other relations, will and can 

 decide a question better than a visitor, who only casually examines 

 the subject. 



I felt obliged to bring this subject forward, in the Geological 

 Magazine, in order to give English readers an indication where 

 to find, if required, the several papers on this question, so impor- 

 tant in its bearings on the subject of the boundaries of the Permo- 

 Carboniferous formation in general, and by way of caation as to 

 Herr Star's publications in that direction. But here again, in 

 medio virtus. Where plants only occur, they may decide the 

 horizon, if they are analogous with known and already determined 



^ Sitzungsb. d. k. bohm. Gesellscb. d. "Wissenscb. 1874. 

 ^ These are the passage-beds, to which I also referred the Niirschan Gas-coal. 



