1855.] MURCHISON AND MORRIS THE HARZ. 437 



whilst other schists overlie the latter. To term either of these slaty 

 masses the Wissenbach slates, without the strongest and most copious 

 fossil evidences, would be presumptuous ; for even in the Rhenish 

 provinces, the succession on the two banks of the Rhine presents 

 no means of making such close comparisons. In putting forth this 

 caution, and particularly in so convulsed and fragmentary a tract as 

 the Harz, we are bound to state, that M. Adolf Roemer believes, that 

 a course of Lower Devonian or Spirifer-sandstone near Schalefeld and 

 Zellerfeld (which we did not see) is overlaid by Calceola-schiefer, 

 and that the latter, which on the left bank of the Rhine is the well- 

 known base of the Eifel limestone, is surmounted by slates which he 

 considers to be of the same age as those of Wissenbach, because they 

 contain the Bactrites, a Cephalopod first supposed to be an Ortho- 

 ceratite, and peculiar certainly, as far as we know, to the deposit in 

 question. But though peculiar in the Rhine country to the Wis- 

 senbach slates, we cannot suppose that this fossil may not be found 

 throughout a considerable thickness of the schistose grauwacke of 

 Lower Devonian age. Not having seen the only locality where this 

 sequence is said by M. Adolf Roemer to be indicated, we must apo- 

 logize for doubting whether the true order in the Harz -differs after 

 all from that established on the banks of the Rhine. Not question- 

 ing the sincerity with which M. Roemer has come to his conclusion, 

 we beg to say that in such a complicated and obscure case as that 

 of the Harz, our inference must also mainly dejjend upon the pre- 

 cision with which the terms "Wissenbach slate" and "Calceola- 

 schiefer " are applied. In speaking of the rocks in the Harz, the 

 geologist who has explored the Rhenish provinces well knows that 

 the Calceola-schiefer of the Eifel or left bank of the Rhine has no 

 exact representative on the right bank, and that the Wissenbach 

 slate of the latter is not recognizable in the former. 



Again, supposing that in the localities above mentioned, the strata 

 are truly so named, not merely from the actual presence of one fossil 

 or from lithological resemblance, it must also be shown clearly, in a 

 country where inversions of strata are so very frequent, that the beds 

 are in their normal position. 



Passing, however, from this subject of detail, on which we hope to 

 satisfy ourselves on a future occasion, we would next remark, that 

 even the lithological distinctions of the subformations of the Devonian 

 rocks of the Harz are so irregular and fugitive, that the features 

 which are dominant in one part of the tract disappear altogether at 

 the distance of a few miles. 



Thus, putting aside what may be considered the equivalent of the 

 Wissenbach slates and Calceola-schiefer of the Rhenish provinces, 

 we see towards the east and in the environs of Elbingerode, and be- 

 tween that place and Iliittenrode, enormous masses of limestone, the 

 lowest of which is unquestionably of the same age as the great De- 

 vonian or Eifel limestone of the Rhine ; since it contains Stringo- 

 cephalus Burtini, Bronteus, and other characteristic fossils. 



It is specially this limestone which has afforded such large quan- 



