Western part of the Palatinate. . 22t 



are situated the ooal measures and red sandstones of the Pa- 

 latinate. 



TheHunsdruck, bounded by the Rhine, the Moselle, the 

 Sarre, and the Nahe, forms part of the great schistose zone 

 which is prolonged from the deportment of the Ardennes 

 across the N. of Germany, and which appears in a great mea- 

 sure formed of transition or intermediate rocks. The red 

 sandstones of the Palatinate join, on the E. those which con- 

 stitute the mountains of the whole northern part of the Vosges, 

 known in the country by the name of Hardt-geberge, the 

 eastern slope of which is rapid, but which gradually declines 

 to the west, towards the country which especially forms the 

 subject of this notice. In this chain, the granite, long hid 

 beneath the secondary rocks, appears for the last time between 

 Landau and Annweiler ; it there forms near Alberschweiler 

 an isolated mountain, in which the granite rock is seen to 

 pass into porphyry. This mountain rises in the midst of the 

 red sandstone that surrounds it, and which immediately rests 

 upon it. Proceeding from this place towards the N. to the 

 foot of Mont-Tonnere, or towards the west to Sarrebruck, red 

 sandstones and quartzose conglomerates are only found, the 

 whole of which is commonly known by the name of the red 

 sandstone formation. They are covered, but only in a few 

 points, in this direction, by horizontal shelly limestone 

 (muschelkalk), as at Bischmissheim, near Sarrebruck, or 

 by limestone and marly clay, as in the environs of Deux 

 Fonts, or by gypsum placed between the red sand and lime- 

 stone, as at Oraersheim, between Sarrebruck and Blies- 

 jcastcl. Not far from Sarguemine, on the right bank of the 

 Sarre, is situated the small saline of Relchingen, near the 

 limit common to the red sandstone of the Palatinate, and the 

 horizontal limestone of Lorraine : the spring only contains 

 about I| per cent, of salt, with muriate of soda, and sulphates 

 of soda and lime. Still more west the red sandstones envelope 

 the southern part of the coal measures, are prolonged on the 

 left bank of the Sarre, to and beyond the environs of Treves, 

 and even penetrate, on the right bank of this river, into the 

 basin of the Brems and its confluents. They are also, in 

 some points, covered with horizontal limestone, as at ^al- 



