428 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 4, 



Base of the Mesozoic or Secondary Rocks, viz. the Trias. — With- 

 out having any pretension to describe the older Secondary rocks or 

 Trias which on all sides overlie the palaeozoic rocks of the chain of 

 the Thiiringerwald, and occupy all the interjacent country extending 

 northwards to the Harz, we can scarcely avoid calling the notice of 

 English geologists to some of their leading features. 



We have already said that no animal remains have been detected 

 in the Lower Bunter-Sandstein which forms the base of the Trias of 

 the German geologists. Nor are we aware of any such remains 

 having been discovered, except in the upper division of the formation 

 and not far beneath its junction with the lower strata of the Mus- 

 chelkalk. 



Wherever the sandstone has been found to be fossiliferous, whether 

 at Hilburghausen near Coburg, where the celebrated footprints of 

 the Cheirotherium are found, or at any locality which has yielded 

 the remains of large Saurians {Trematosaurus, Capitosaurus, Meto- 

 pias, Nothosaurus, &c.), it is the superior band of sandstone in 

 which they are found, — a rock which is separated by a vast thickness 

 of strata from the Zechstein deposit and its natural capping. All 

 these intermediate strata of the so-called Bunter-Sandstein, in which 

 no remains of fossils have been detected, constitute therefore what 

 must at least be called debateable ground by all geologists who 

 classify formations according to their imbedded remains. Nor can 

 the field observer who may work out his inductions by the colloca- 

 tion and mineral character of the rocks offer any good reason for 

 attaching these intermediate red sandstones to the Trias above, rather 

 than to the Permian below them. For, as has been already shown, 

 certain Permian animals and plants rise high into those red sandstones 

 and conglomerates which in Russia lie above the Zechstein. 



As far, therefore, as evidences go, they are, I repeat, entirely in 

 favour of our placing the upper limit of the Permian higher than it 

 has been provisionally drawn ; since if the Russian analogy is found to 

 hold good in Germany, our associates in that country must neces- 

 sarily separate all the Lower Bunter from the Trias and class it 

 with the Permian. Even when we refer to mineral characters and 

 the nature of the physical sequence, we can find in Germany no 

 reason whatever for placing the lower limit of the Trias where it 

 now stands according to native authors. If lithological distinctions 

 be appealed to, we see good spotted sandstones, red, white, and green 

 (particularly in Saxony), both below and above the Zechstein, thus 

 exhibiting the Permian as a Lower or Palceozoic Trias. 



Now, the Permian, which is thus a Lower Trias, is everywhere 

 throughout Germany completely conformable to the original and 

 superjacent Trias, which, having the great and widely extended Mus- 

 chelkalk as a central limestone between two formations of sand and 

 red marl, was justly so named. 



Without a break, and without the trace of eruptions, which, per- 

 forating the lower strata, have spread out their coulees, cinders, and 

 ashes in those contemporaneous sheets which abound in the subja- 

 cent palaeozoic rocks, the highest Permian strata, i. e. from the 



