﻿HEER ON THE ANTHRACITE PLANTS OF THE ALPS. 93 



and were washed into it. If so, they ought to be found mixed with 

 marine remains, which is not the case : no Belemnite or other 

 marine animal has ever been found in any of the plant-beds, and 

 vice versa : moreover, at Petit-Cceur a mass of sandstones containing 

 no organic remains occurs between the two deposits. The probability 

 is that the anthracitic plants were not deposited in salt water, since 

 in that case Fucoids ought to be mixed with them ; as happens at 

 Radoboj, where insects and land-plants are mixed with marine re- 

 mains, and at the Col de Madelaine, where Escher found fucoidal 

 plants in the belemnitic schist. Since then the belemnite-bed con- 

 tains both marine animals and marine plants, while the anthracite- 

 bed has no trace of either, I am entitled to infer that the latter was 

 accumulated in fresh water ; which sufficiently explains the absence 

 of Carboniferous forms of animals ; since both the Mollusca and the 

 characteristic Trilobites of that period were marine. Their absence 

 is no objection to the referring the anthracitic plants to the Coal flora, 

 but merely proves that the plant-beds are a totally different group from 

 the belemnite-beds. If the one be a marine and the other a fresh- 

 water formation, a great * hiatus ' must occur between the two : at 

 all events, it is clear from the complete difference of their organic 

 contents that they cannot be considered as one formation ; for organic 

 characters, when so distinctly marked as in this case, are of far 

 greater weight than petrographic characters. I am therefore of opi- 

 nion, that at Petit-Cceur an inversion of the strata has taken place, 

 which has thrown the belemnitic under the anthracitic beds. And 

 if at Petit-Cceur, where the relations of the strata are most compli- 

 cated, the circumstance of the sharp distinction between the organic 

 contents of the two proves that they cannot be contemporaneous ; 

 still more evident is this in other parts of the Alpine chain, as in 

 Provence, in the Valais, and in the Austrian Alps, where the anthra- 

 citic beds are seen to repose immediately on crystalline schists. 



When we compare these plants with those of other formations, we 

 readily find that they agree with those of the Carboniferous flora. 

 The following list shows that our collections contain twenty-eight 

 species, twelve of which have not yet been found in any other locality. 

 If to these we add the species described by Brongniart and Bunbury*, 

 we have in all forty-eight species. Of these, five seem never to have 

 been found elsewhere, and to be peculiar to the anthracitic schists : 

 viz. Pecopteris Beaumontiif, Brong., P. pulchra, Heer, Neuropteris 

 Soretii, Brong., N. Escheri, Heer, and Lepidophyllum caricinum, 

 Heer. About six species are doubtful, yet so closely resembling 

 coal-plants, that they probably will be found to agree, when better 

 specimens shall have been procured. Thirty-seven are identical with 

 coal-plants, and not a single one agrees with any Triassic or Liassic 

 plant. 



If we compare these plants with those of the different divisions of 

 the Coal-formation, we find that the greater part agree with those of 



* [Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1849, vol. v. pp. 138 et seq.— Ed.] 

 t [See observations on the apparent alliance of P. Beaumontii with P. Whit- 

 liensis, supra, Part I. p. 194. — Ed.] 



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