1845.] AUSTEN ON THE COAL-BEDS OF NORMANDY. 5 



with these strata that the coal seams of Littry, Moon, Plessis, &c. are 

 associated, and they must therefore cease to be considered as of the 

 true carboniferous epoch; and my own impression, after several visits, 

 is, that no deposits of the latter period occur in this part of France. 

 The fossil plants of the Normandy coal at present known are, — 



1 . Calamifes Luckowii, var. /3. of Brong. 



This variety, in the shortness of the articulations and in the di- 

 stinct form of the tubercles, is very unlike the species known by that 

 name from Belgium or Newcastle. Var. /3, it must be remembered, is 

 peculiar to Littry ; so that should the species be the same, the constant 

 habit of the Littry plant implies altered conditions affecting its growth. 



2. Catamites cruciatus, Brong. p. 128. pi. 19. 



Very like the preceding in the closeness of its articulations, but 

 more finely ribbed. There seems some doubt as to the identity of 

 this with Sternberg's species from Saarbruck, and there are reasons 

 for considering it a true Equisetum. 



3. Neuropteris rotundifolia, Ad. Br. 238. pi. 70. p. 1. 

 Peculiar to Plessis. 



There remain also a few more species which are new and unde- 

 scribed. This flora, as far as it goes, comes nearest to that of Saar- 

 bruck ; but if I might venture on a comparison, it would be to refer 

 the flora of the Normandy coal beds to that period which has lately 

 been designated as Permian by Mr. Murchison. 



To this account of the lower portion of the poecilitic system of 

 Normandy, may be added one observation respecting its uppermost 

 beds. On descending the high lands of the older palaeozoic strata 

 which surround the town of Valognes, in the Cotentin, a belt of 

 red sandstone and marl is first traversed, but the town itself is 

 built on beds of a very different character. This deposit may be 

 studied in numerous open quarries of building-stone, whose mine- 

 ralogy has been accurately described by M. de Caumont ; from 

 mineral character it had been assigned to various parts of the 

 oolitic system, most commonly to the Portland beds; but its real 

 position was always maintained by M. de Gcrville to be intermediate 

 between the red marls and the lower lias. As to its lower limit, 

 this may clearly be seen in the neighbourhood of Valognes, but at 

 this place it is uncovered by higher deposits : at Osmanville, how- 

 ever, and other places, the superposition of the lias to the Valognes 

 freestone is visible. 



M. Alexandre Leymerie, in an able memoir on the base of the 

 secondary system of deposits of the department of the Rhine, desig- 

 nates one part of the series under the local name of the Choin- 

 batard, and compares it with the freestone of Valognes, adding, " If 

 we were better acquainted with the fossils of the Valognes beds, we 

 should probably find that a certain number were common to the 

 two deposits." The list of the fossils of the Choin-batard contains 

 but few species, and both in the Lyonnais and in Normandy the 

 specimens are badly preserved ; but I was fortunate in obtaining at 



