1855.] 



MURCHISON AND MORRIS THE HARZ. 



443 



Upper Palceozoic Rocks surrounding the Chain of the Harz. — 

 The physical feature of the geographical outline of the Harz being 

 at right angles to the ancient strike of the older rocks of the chain, 

 which was formerly noticed by Humboldt, and dwelt upon by Sedg- 

 wick and Murchison, is analogous to the phaenomenon already pointed 

 out in the Thiiringerwald. In the Harz, as in Thuringia, the Permian 

 deposits (with some slight underlying courses of coal, see fig. 10, 

 p. 445) are abruptly and entirely separated from all the more ancient 

 rocks, including the Lower Carboniferous, and form a girdle around 

 an elongated ellipsoid, the major axis of which trends fromW.N.W. 

 to E.S.E., or nearly at right angles to the original direction of the 

 older and elevated deposits. 



When the original communication above cited was offered to the 

 Geological Society, the formations known as the Rothe-todte-liegende 

 were classed with the Secondary rocks ; but since then they have 

 been grouped as Upper Palaeozoic, under the name of Permian. In 

 respect to the few shreds of coal which have been detected around 

 the Harz, they all lie, we believe, beneath the red rocks as in Thu- 

 ringia ; and we are now of opinion that in the example of Meisdorf, 

 near Ballenstedt, the coal is not subordinate to the red conglomerate, 

 as was once supposed, but crops out from below it*. 



That great red conglomerate and sandstone (the Rothe-todte- 

 liegende), which is the equivalent of the Lower Red Sandstone of 

 Britain, appears as a wrapper of very unequal dimensions around the 

 western, southern, and eastern parts of the chain. Thinly developed 

 to the south of Lauthenthal, between the older slaty rocks and the 

 Zechstein, it is not again visible in proceeding eastwards until we 

 reach the environs of Sachsa and Ilfeld, where it was formerly shown f 

 to be associated in its lower parts with a vast accumulation of newer 

 and quasi stratified red porphyry, — the "quarz-freier porphyr" of the 

 Germans. In the hill of Kyfhausen, to the south of that tract, 

 many silicified stems of ferns {Psaronites) are found, similar to those 

 which occur in rocks of the same age in Saxony and Thuringia. 



The clearest and most instructive natural section of this deposit, 

 in a small space, with which we are acquainted, where it flanks the 

 Harz, is at Leimbach, near Mansfeld. 



Accompanied by M. Hoffman, attached to the mines of that place, 

 we examined in some detail the hill to the north of it (see fig. 9). 



Fig. 9. 



■Section of the Permian Rocks at Leimbach. 

 Distance about 1 mile. 



Leimbach. 



e. Zechstein. (Bottom beds concretionary.) 



d. Red earthy sandstone. 



c. Conglomerate with white quartz-pebbles. 



b. Deep-red shaly sandstone. 

 a. Porphyritic and amygdaloidal conglome- 

 rate. 



* Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond. 2 ser. vol. vi. p. 295. This coal is not now worked, 

 t See Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond. 2 ser. vol. vi. p. 286, and section fig. 15. 

 VOL. XI. PART I. 2 H 



