130 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jail. 3, 



could not obtain very exact measurements. A short distance to the 

 S.W., a yellow clay with calcareous nodules occurs near the summit 

 of the hill, which, although containing no organic remains, is sup- 

 posed by the miners and local geologists to be identical with the 

 beds near Cassel in which the marine mollusca have been found. Its 

 true relation to the Brown-coal, however, has not yet been satisfac- 

 torily made out. 



Other extensive coal-beds are worked on the other side of the 

 valley, E.N.E. from Ober Kaufungen. Here the various seams of 

 brown-coal are seen alternating with beds of sand and clay. In the 

 sandstone-bed w^hich underlies the principal seam of brown-coal are 

 found the same vegetable impressions as those already described as 

 occurring in the sandstone under the brown-coal of the Habichts Wald. 

 They are chiefly Taxus, Cypressus, and other plants likely to grow 

 in vast subtropical lagoons, not unlike those now found in the vast 

 swamps of Louisiana. The uppermost beds consist of hard quartzi- 

 ferous sands, which are sometimes broken up and cover the surface 

 with huge irregular blocks. 



Approaching the district where the principal coal-works are 

 carried on, we were enabled to make out the following section, in as- 

 cending order. 



1. Brown-coal, occasionally containing erect stems of trees, Jbroken 



off where the overlying beds commence, thus pro'v'ing them 

 to have grown in situ. 



2. Blue clay, with numerous Septaria. 



3. Thin band of limestone. 



4. Blue clay, with marine shells; those we found consisted prin- 



cipally of — 



Nucula margaritacea. Solen. 



Lyellii ? (Deshayesiana ?). Tornatella (resembling 7". s«mM/a/a). 



Astarte. Kostellada (with a broad-winged 



Cytherea. b'p). 



Cyprina. Turritella. 

 Pectunculus. 



We found specimens of all these in a very short time. 



5. Thin bed of highly fossiliferous sand, containing numerous 



fragments of bivalves — Pecten (resembling P. pictus), Tur- 

 ritella, &c. ; closely resembling that on the Habichts Wald, 

 near Cassel. 

 In one locality this sand contains numerous ferruginous concretions 

 with the same fossil remains. 



6. A thick bed of loose unfossiliferous sand, 30 feet. 



7. Forming the top or capping of the hill, on the north side of 



the valley, is a thick bed of hard compact sandstone, now 



broken up into large irregular fragments. 

 On this north side of the valley, the rock underlying the tertiary 

 deposits is Muschelkalk, almost horizontal. A small basaltic hill 

 rises near the centre of this valley-plain. It has not yet been ascer- 

 tained whether the brown-coal extends over the whole of this basin, 

 but as it has been bored for and found in several directions, the pro- 



