330 , . M. BoUE' on 



Yet the greater part are more or less compact sandstones, 

 coloured grey, violet grey, greenish grey, and brownish, 

 hardened by marls or by ferruginous infiltrations, as is seen 

 near Herford, and the patches of this formation which occur 

 on the S. and W. of Pyrmont, near Luntorf, Rudsick, Falk- 

 enhagen, &c. ; some certain small masses of marl, and at 

 a distance resemble coal grit. 



These lignite sandstones^ containing pyrites and alter- 

 nating with slate clays and marls, which are shelly in their 

 upper strata, cannot be confounded with the coal measures.; 

 in the first place, because the combustible is always only a 

 bituminous wood, a pyritous mineral carbon, or else a jet, 

 which rarely seems to pass into certain varieties of pitch coal 

 (Minden Buckeburg.)* 



The abundance of marine fossils, of marls and slate clays, 

 the nature of the sandstone, the small number of coal beds, 

 and the nearly total want of those disruptions of beds which 

 is observed in the true coal measures, are sufficient charac- 

 ters to distinguish this formation from any other, (o ^rtJi 



The alternation of this sandstone with the lower strata of 

 the oolite formation is not confined to Westphalia, for traces 

 of it are seen in Coburg, where, at Blumenroth, we observe 

 two beds of the same grey compact sandstone, alternating 

 with marls, between the true quadersandstein and the lower 

 and shelly part of the oolite formation. Further to the 

 south, similar facts occur more distinctly beneath the lias of 

 southern Bavaria and Wurtemberg. Nests of iron pyrites 

 are occasionally found, as near Bohrbach in Coburg. 



The fossils of the quadersandstein are abundant ; we have 

 already mentioned siliceous or bituminous wood, and im- 

 pressions of monocotyledonous plants + ; the siliceous wood 

 is particularly abundant in Coburg, and is sometimes co- 

 loured green by nickel. The impressions of wood and pieces 

 of plants are frequent; sometimes the vegetables have dis- 

 appeared and left no void spaces (Gittersen, Coburg) j their 

 position is either horizontal or inclined. 



* See Wurzer, Analyse der Schwefelquelleu zu Nendorf, 1815. 

 f Dicotyledons, Humboldt, (Trans). 



