SS2 M. Boue' on 



haps magnesian, and traversed by small calcareous veins 

 (Pyrmont, Werkershauen, the Vosges). 



Some beds of this limestone are blackish, brownish, co- 

 loured by hydrate of iron, and brownish red. 



These varieties do not appear to be distributed in the 

 deposite without a certain order ; we always find the oolitic 

 varieties in the lower parts, and especially in the localities 

 where the marls of the new red sandstone do not alternate 

 with a kind of oolite ; above these limestones come the com- 

 pact limestones with scattered fossils, and the beds of lime- 

 stone filled with the remains of the Isis ? then the limestones 

 in which the terebratulae especially abound, and which are 

 sometimes slightly black, a variety which occurs with few 

 shells among the lowest strata (the Uuckeberg). 



The yellowish cellular beds are among the upper parts 

 and in the environs of Pyrmont, are covered by compact 

 limestones, the upper strata of which contain small crystals 

 of prismatic quartz. We also here and there observe small 

 masses of sulphuret of lead, apparently rolled ? in this lime- 

 stone, sometimes accompanied by druses of crystallized 

 quartz. (Ileinberg, Pyrmont). 



Small calcareous veins are often Seen in the muschelkalk 

 as also slight siliceous infiltrations, yet the latter are rare in 

 Germany, and it is only among the lower strata of this 

 limestone that we occasionally observe yellowish or greyish 

 chert (silex corne), as at Ilohenhagen, near Gottingen, at 

 the Langenberg, near Coburg, and near Gotha. This cir- 

 cumstance also occurs on the western ridge of the Vosges 

 chain, where this siliceous matter, more or less mixed with 

 limestone, forms continuous beds, as near Bishmosheim. 



The description we have just given applies to the band of 

 muschelkalk which surrounds the Vosges, to the narrow 

 chain of muschelkalk which extends from Warburg by Biel- 

 feld into the Osnabruck, to the platform of muschelkalk to 

 the north and west of the Hartz, to that of Hesse and of the 

 great basin of Saxony and Thuringia, and to the great plat- 

 form which extends from Hanau to near Stutgard, and which 

 M. Keferstein has without any reason classed with the 



