﻿284 Canadian Record of Science. 



and Valenciennes, the direction of the folds changes : 

 they now strike east-north-east. Here again we have to 

 do with a completely overtnrned and overthrust outer 

 edge, the nature of which may be exactly determined 

 from the structure of the Belgian coal measures. The 

 group of folded horsts, with which we must now deal, is 

 particularly large. The overthrust outer edge is not 

 visible at many places ; it is seen, as already stated, in the 

 Belgian coal measures ; on the other side the Khine it 

 disappears and is not again visible till it crops up again 

 far east on the eastern bank of the Sudeten, in the over- 

 thrust of the western part of the coal measures of Ostrau. 



The horsts of these fragmentary mountains exhibit 

 folds which strike in the west towards the north-east 

 or north-north-east, and further along towards the east, 

 then towards the east-south-east, south-east, and finally 

 towards the south. They thus form a great curve convex 

 towards the north, and the most important horsts are as 

 follows : — First, in the Belgian coal fields, the whole 

 system of folds on the Ehine and as far as the Taunus, 

 further south the Black Forest, the Vogesen (Vosges) and 

 the eastern part of the central plateau of France, then in 

 the east the Hartz, and the series of mountain fragments 

 more or less intimately connected with the Bohemian 

 mass, stretching from the Thuringian Forest to the above 

 mentioned coal fields at Ostrau. 



The convexity of this curve is most clearly seen in the 

 relations of the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) to the Giant 

 Mountains (Riesengebirge.) In the vicinity o^f Hof in 

 Bavaria there crops out the Mtinchberg gneiss, the base of 

 the completely levelled ruins of a particularly important 

 mountain, which was at one time perhaps the highest 

 of this mighty system of folds, and since this country, the 

 Saxon Vogtland, used to be called at one time the land of 

 the Variscians, the name Variscian folds or Variscian 

 Highlands has been selected for the whole curve from the 



