German Geological Society. 235 



which he examined during last j'^ear, in company with Herr Ditt- 

 marsch. Very clear sectional drawings of six of these are included 

 in the paper, two of which represent sections near Meerane in 

 Saxony. These, with the descriptions of them, agree in character 

 with those noticed by the translator, in the Quart. Journ. of the Geol. 

 Soc. vol. xl. p. 391, and this agreement is pointed out. 



The theory advocated by some writers, that " the circulation of 

 water between the strata of the Plattendolomit has, by internal 

 erosion of the beds, produced cavities into which the overlying beds 

 have sunk," is criticized and shown to be inconsistent with the 

 observed facts. 



The author next points out that unless we are to class the whole 

 of the Bunter with the Zechstein, against which there are insuper- 

 able objections on palseontological grounds, it is impossible (and the 

 impossibility is acknowledged by his colleagues of the Geological 

 Survey) to draw any boundary-line whatever between the Zechstein 

 and the Bunter. The fossil-evidence recently found by the author 

 in the Meerane district in the regularly stratified beds of sandstone 

 in the limestone quarry next the village of Crotenleite, in a position 

 less than a metre above the eroded surface of the Plattendolomit,^ is 

 next described, and the close resemblance of the numerous Saurian 

 footprints discovered by the author last summer in that locality with 

 those of Chirosaurus Barthi and Chirotherium Geinitzi in the Univer- 

 sity Museum at Jena and elsewhere is pointed out. As in company 

 with the latter there was found a somewhat larger and coarser but 

 otherwise similar form to Rhizocor allium jenense of the lower Wellen- 

 kalk, so here, immediately above the Plattendolomit, the same asso- 

 ciation of undoubted Triassic forms was met with. In addition to 

 these, the author also mentions the occurrence of a few horseshoe- 

 shaped reliefs on the bedding-planes of the sandstones, which he con- 

 siders to be vegetable-remains, and these bear the closest resemblance 

 to certain forms which have been described by Koch and E. Schmid 

 from the Bunter Sandstone of Jena. [Those who know the district 

 about Jena will see the force of this comparison.] These remains 

 are now open to the inspection of geologists in the Dresden Museum. 

 " Though these are as j'et so sparingly met with (says Geinitz), yet 

 they prove that the variegated shaly sandstones (Z. o. 3) belong to 

 the Bunter and not to the Zechstein." 



" In other districts, where also the lower members of the Zechstein 

 are developed, local disturbances of the original stratification have 

 occurred, partly through subsidences of the Plattendolomit in con- 

 sequence of the solution of gypsum and rock-salt, partly through 

 the elevation of the strata in consequence of the gradual conversion 

 of anhydrite into gypsum. Excellent examples of this occur in the 

 neighbourhood of Gera, and at Posneck and Oppurg in Thiiringen ; . 

 yet in all these cases a similar unconformable orrler of deposition of 

 the lower Eoth (the lowermost Bunter strata) upon the upper Zech- 

 stein is repeated." These instances are described in detail in the 



^ Cornp. Geol. Mag. December, 1884, where a quotation is made from a letter of 

 Geinitz on this subject. 



