on the Mttschelkalk, 8cc. S18 



dicotyledonous phytolithes. In it have been found mytu- 

 lites, tellinites, pectinites, turritellae, and ostreas, (with 

 cerithia, but no ammonites; Habelschwerd, Alt-Lomnitz in 

 Silesia), and at the same time the wood of palms, the im- 

 pressions of leaves belonging to the class of the dicotyledons, 

 and small deposites of coal (Deister, and Wefersleben near 

 Quedlinbourg), very well described by Messrs. Rettberg 

 and Schulze, and passing into lignite. 



M. von Raumer had observed that the quadersandstein is 

 separated from the new red sandstone by the muschelkalk ; 

 it is placed between this limestone and the Jura limestone, 

 and consequently beneath the oolite formations of England 

 and the continent. In this position we cannot consider it, 

 with M. Keferstein (see his Essay on the mineral geography 

 of Germany, T. 1. p. 12. and 48.), as parallel to the molasse 

 of Argovy (mergelsandstein), which represents the plastic 

 clay beneath the chalk. The nature of the vegetable remains 

 contained in the quadersandstein, and its resemblance to the 

 planerkalk which belongs to the chloritous and sandy strata 

 of the chalk, have caused it to be regarded by many cele- 

 brated geologists as a formation posterior to the oolite for- 

 mation : thus Messrs. Buckland, Conybeare, and Phillips 

 place it between the chalk and the upper beds of the oolites. 

 But, according to the observations of M. Boue and many 

 other celebrated German geologists, the quadersandstein, 

 sometimes alternating with marly and conglomerate beds, 

 rests immediately on gneiss near Freyberg, on the coal mea- 

 sures in Silesia, and in Bohemia ; on the new red sandstone 

 near Nuremberg in Franconia ; on the muschelalk between 

 Hildesheim and Dickholzen near Helmst'adt, and near 

 Schweinfurt on the Mein. It is covered by the oolite for- 

 mation, and alternates with marly beds of this limestone in 

 Westphalia, between Osnabriick, Bielfeld, and Biickebourg. 



