Western part of the Palatinate. 231 



3dly. At the salines of Creutznach, half a league on the 

 S.E. from the town of the same name, near the village of Miin- 

 ster, the two banks of the Nahe are formed of steep rocks, 

 200 metres [656 ft.] high, of a porphyry analogous to that of 

 Mont Tonnerre and Konigsberg, but often affording varieties 

 of a deeper colour, and in the paste of which a greater num- 

 ber of crystals are observed than in the other localities. Yet 

 these crystals are occasionally of the same colour as the paste, 

 and they are with difficulty distinguished. Sometimes also 

 this paste appears to envelope elongated nodules, which are 

 either t)f the same nature with it, or contain geodes of calca- 

 reous crystals. The porphyry there occurs over a great ex- 

 tent of country : on the S. W. it constitutes the mountains to 

 within a league of the north of Obermoschei, with the ex- 

 ception of some interruptions in which the trap or coal mea- 

 sures occur ; on the E. it occurs in the same manner to the 

 environs of Wollstein, and beyond Fiirfeld : the paste is 

 here a true argilolite ; to the W. proceeding up the Nahe 

 the porphyry is followed for more than a league without in- 

 terruption, and afterwards at different intervals ; at Nieder- 

 hausen, it presents traces of nearly vertical beds, which ap- 

 pear to dip beneath the trap rocks ; near Bingert it consti- 

 tutes the elevated mountain of Lemberg and is covered by the 

 coal formation, in which, as at Orbis, small veins of mer- 

 cury are cut at a slight depth by the petrosiliceous rock. On 

 the N. at a short distance fram the salines, the porphyritic 

 rocks cease on the right bank; a little further, they also 

 disappear on the left bank, and the Nahe enters into a coun- 

 try of plains and low hills, formed of red sandstone, the beds 

 of which evidently rest on the porphyry. 



Notwithstanding the numerous escarpments that this 

 great porphyritic mass presents, I could not observe any true 

 stratification in it. The rock separates into decided prisms 

 near Fiirfeld. Copper mines have been v\orked in the por- 

 phyry near the salines of Greutznach. If we may judge from 

 the number and extent of the subterraneous works occurring 

 in this locality, the extraction ought to have been both con- 

 siderable and productive. The principal vein contains pyvi- 



