1863.] MTJRCHISON BAVARIA AND BOHEMIA. 363 



conformably to the slates below and to the beds above, and which, 

 being loaded with Graptolites, are unquestionably Silurian (o). 



The Graptolite-bearing schists are next surmounted, also in perfect 

 conformity, by a micaceous, glossy, waved, and uneven-bedded sili- 

 ceous clay-slate, representing the Nereites-fiags of the Thuringer- 

 wald. These strata, standing for a portion of the Devonian rocks (n), 

 and occupying a thickness of about 15,000 feet, are surmounted by 

 the concretionary Cyprichna-limestone (n), so well known near Saal- 

 feld and other places in the Thuringerwald. This is the Upper 

 Devonian, or Clymenia-limestone, of Minister, which is characterized 

 by the Plants described by Kichter and linger*. 



Ascending from the Cypridinae- and plant-bed, M. Giimbel assigns 

 a thickness of about 14,000 or 15,000 feet to the conformably 

 overlying schists, clay-slate, and grauwacke (I), which, containing the 

 Calamites transitionis and other plants of the Lower Carboniferous 

 group, pass regularly upwards into a zone of limestone (m) about 

 220 feet thick. This limestone is charged with numerous Producti, 

 of species well known in the Mountain-limestone of Britain and 

 France, several of which were collected by Professor Sedgwick and 

 myself in the year 1839. This true carboniferous limestone, which 

 is intercalated in a great expansion of schistose ' grauwacke,' was 

 shown by my associate and myself to have been elevated with and to 

 be parallel to the underlying Devonian rocks, and to be quite uncon- 

 formable to the horizontal, upper Coal-formations of Bohemia. 



This last-mentioned great break in the geological succession 

 occurs in France as well as in Germany, and will be again alluded 

 to in the sequel. 



In the remainder, or north-western part of M. GiimbeJ's section, 

 which bringsus up to the town of Hof, we see a good example of 

 the dislocation and inversion to which the strata have been subjected 

 where they have been affected by various igneous rocks. 



Here, in the detailed section across the country from the Laby- 

 rinth Hill, near Hof, by the village of Leimitz, to the hill of the 

 Watch-tower, east of Hof, as drawn by M. Giimbel (fig. 3), all the 

 strata are inverted. The crystalline chloritic and hornblendic rocks 

 (a) of the "Watch-tower overlie parts of yellow, red, and grey mica- 

 ceous clay-slate dipping to the S.E., and, after passing over a de- 

 pression occupied by alluvium, other beds of grey clay- slate, with 

 lydianstone and slate, lie upon black granular dolomite-limestone 

 (c), nearly 200 feet thick, which lies on a considerable thickness of 

 lydianstone and clay- slate (d). It was in the next band (e) where 

 M. Giimbel first found those fossils which M. Barrande pronounced 

 as belonging to the Primordial Silurian fauna, mingled with some 

 forms indicating a transition into the Second Silurian fauna of that 



* See * Siluria,' 2nd edit. p. 408. These plants are very peculiar; and, accord- 

 ing to Linger, besides forms intermediate between Fems and Equisetacese, others 

 seem to be the primitive forms of Cycads and Conifers. In the environs of Saal- 

 feld there is a most perfect and gradual transition from the Devonian Plant-beds 

 into the overlying strata charged with Lower Carboniferous Plants of entirely 

 different forms. 



