1855.] MURCHISON AND MORRIS THE HARZ. 439 



Clausthal, and still more when we pursue them into the Lauthenthal, 

 the lower limestone thins out, and the only calcareous rocks visible 

 between enormous masses of inferior slaty grauwacke with Bactrites, 

 called *'Wissenbach slate" by Roemer, and the overlying Carboni- 

 ferous rocks, is that which is clearly the upper limestone, as distin- 

 guished by the Terebratula cuboides and other fossils. 



This is seen at and to the north of the bridge near the mining 

 works of Lauthenthal, in a natural section pointed out to us by 

 M. Ad. Roemer himself (see fig. 7). 



Fig. 7. — Section of the Lower Carboniferous and the Devonian 

 Rocks in the Lauthenthal, Distance about 2 miles. 



S. N. 



Lower f^* ^^r^^"^ scHsts, with Posidonomya Becheri, 



■, f g. Herbom scHs 



i^ower \f Kieselschiefer 



Carboniferous. y^_ Sandy schists. 



{d. Cypridina-shale (Upper Devonian). 

 c. Schists and Cypridina-limestone. 

 b. Place of Stringocephalus-limestone (denuded). 

 a. Slaty black schists. 



Now whether M. Roemer be correct or not, in assigning to the in- 

 ferior slates of this section the place of the Wissenbach slates, because 

 he has found the Bactrites in them, it is manifest that there is here 

 no representative of the Stringocephalus-limestone, for hundreds, nay, 

 thousands of feet of slaty rocks are well exposed between Lauthen- 

 thal and Goslar without a course of subordinate or underlying lime- 

 stone to represent the rocks of the Eifel, which are so clearly exhi- 

 bited in other parts of the Harz. At Goslar, on the contrary, the only 

 inferior rock met with is, as before said, the Spirifer- sandstone. On 

 the other hand, the ascending section at Lauthenthal is clear. The 

 overlying calcareous strata contain schists charged with CypridiniB, 

 which pass into calcareo-concretionary beds with Terebratula pug- 

 nus ; the whole representing the Uppermost Devonian. 



In fact, these masses not only resemble the Kramenzel or " ant- 

 stone " of the Rhine, which is of that age, but are overlaid by schistose 

 grauwacke, which is immediately covered by the Lowest Carboni- 

 ferous beds (here in the state of Kiesel-schiefer), and these by other 

 schists which are identically the same schistose representative of the 

 Carboniferous Limestone which at Herbom and so many places in the 

 Rhenish provinces and elsewhere, as well as in the British Isles, is 

 charged with the Posidonotnya Becheri, as well as with Goniatites, 

 Crinoids, and many land plants. 



As, therefore, there is no true representative of the Eifel limestone 

 in the Lauthenthal, where the consecutive series is so well exhibited 

 and where so little eruptive rock appears, the reader may judge of the 

 impossibility of reasoning on the general succession from the litho- 

 logical evidence of any one local section. 



This rapid change in mineral conditions is again seen in the west- 



