1855.] 



MURCHISON AND MORRIS THURINGERWALD. 



415 



proceeding to the east, the traveller suddenly finds himself at the 

 foot of lofty calcareous cliffs of dark-reddish limestone and calcareous 

 schist, with many nodules. Judging from the colour and external 

 aspect of the rocks alone, the geologist sees, that in moving to the east 

 he has left behind him everything to which the word ' grauwacke ' 

 can be correctly applied, and has entered among stony masses, which, 

 whether they be red, brown, ferruginous, or dullish and greenish, 

 white, are lithologically dissimilar to what he has traversed in the 

 loftier hills of the forest. Overlying unconformably certain dark- 

 coloured Silurian schists, the chief strata are calcareous beds, quarried 

 as large flagstones, whose surfaces are distinguished by a multitude 

 of greyish calcareous concretions, in a matrix of dark red shale. 



These strata (fig. 2, a) are folded over in rapid undulations in the 

 course of half a mile on the right bank of the river, and are fairly 

 surmounted by thin-bedded, light greenish-grey, brown, and black 

 schists, and shivery siliceous flags {b). 



Fig. 2. — Section showing the relations of the Upper Devonian and 

 the Lower Carboniferous Rocks in the Gorge of the Saaly near 

 Saalfeld. Distance about 4 miles. 



Bohlen. PfafFenberg. Rotheberg. 



<^ 6L d. 



Fault. 



d. Zechstein, &c. (with traces of Weiss- 



liegende). 

 c. Lower Carboniferous, with Plants. 



Relations hidden 

 for some distance. 



b. Flagstones and Cypridina-shale, with^ 



Plants. I Upper 



a. Undulations of Cypridina-limestone (Devonian, 

 and shale. 



The inferior limestones and calcareous schists contain many fossils, 

 which have never been referred to any type except that which the 

 geologists of the Rhine, the brothers Sandberger and F. Roemer, 

 class as Upper Devonian ; whilst the concretionary schists and lime- 

 stones in which they occur are to a great extent lithologically similar 

 to the rocks of the western part of the Rhenish provinces, locally 

 called Kramenzel- stein, or ant-stone*. 



It may here be mentioned, that not one true carboniferous fossil 

 (no large Productus for example) has been detected in this forma- 

 tion, which here has certainly a thickness of several hundred feet. 

 On the other hand, all the typical forms are Devonian ; viz. PhacopSy 

 three species ; Clymenia, ten species ; Orthoceras, thirteen species ; 

 Goniatites, eight species ; and Cypridince in abundance, including 

 the C. serrato-striata of the Rhine and Devonshire. The Cypridina 

 serrato-striata, which so pre-eminently characterizes the Upper De- 

 vonian zone in the Rhenish provinces and the districts of Franconia, 



* The Devonian fossils of Saalfeld, according to Richter, are— Cypridina, 2 sp. ; 

 Phacops, 2 sp. ; Asaphus ? ; Bellerophon, 1 sp. ; Orthoceratites, 13 sp. ; Lituites) 

 2 sp. ; Nautilus, 1 sp. ; Clymenia, 10 sp. ; Goniatites, 8 sp. ; Euomphalus, 1 sp. ; 

 Cyathocrinus, 1 sp. ; Actinocrinus, 1 sp. ; and about 12 species of Cardinia, Tere- 

 bratula, Avicula, &c. Many of these fossils are identical with those described by 

 Count Muaster, from the north flank of the Fichtelgebirge. 



