24 D. C. DA VIES ON THE UPPER CARBONIFEROUS 



ever content to adopt, years afterwards, a foreign name for a group 

 of strata whose typical completeness lay in their own country. 

 Group 2 is represented as presenting a great variety of mineral 

 structure, which is shown by the comparison of a number of sections. 

 It contains a bed of carbonaceous shale, which, in places, becomes an 

 impure coal. This group, the Professor considers the equivalent of 

 the Roth-todtliegendo of Germany. Group 3 is described as being 

 represented on the west coast of England by the thin limestones 

 and shales of the same division, and with them as being the 

 equivalent of the Zechstein of the continent of Europe. Group 4 is 

 described as the equivalent of the St. Bees sandstone on the west 

 (Sections 3 and 4). Prof, Sedgwick places it in its true position 

 below the New Ped Sandstone, though possibly he regards it as 

 having more in common with the strata above than with those below. 

 He may not have been far wrong in this supposition, inasmuch as the 

 more complete the sections are that we obtain of groups 4 and 5 the 

 less does the supposed break and unconformity become. 



Section 18 is a pit-section at Zwickau, Saxony. It is given in an 

 interesting account of the coal-fields of that country which recently 

 appeared in the 'Colliery Guardian'*. Group 2 has, it will be 

 seen, all the characteristics of the same group in the other sections. 

 It may be regarded as typical ; for we are told that in many other 

 parts of Germany the coal-formation is immediately overlain by a 

 predominating coarse grey conglomerate. Group 3 has the usual 

 limestones ; and group 4 consists, as in the other sections, of sand- 

 stones. 



Section 19 is a very complete one: it was described by Sir R. I. 

 Murchisonf as occurring near Semil, in Bohemia. It presents the 

 usual features of groups 2, 3, and 4, with a preponderance, as in the 

 Ifton section, of carbonaceous matter and clays over limestones in 

 group 3. 



Section 20 was recently described by Dr. Dawson £, of Montreal ; 

 and it is perhaps one of the most complete sections hitherto given 

 of the strata under notice. 



The section starts, in group 1, with the Spirorbis-limestone, which 

 Dr. Dawson considers the equivalent of that of the English coal- 

 fields. The strata by which this is overlain contain the usual coal- 

 plants with Entomostracan and fish-remains. The uppermost shales 

 abound in Cythere and fish-scales. Group 2 consists of thick grey 

 and reddish sandstones with shales of the same colour, together with 

 thin coals, clays, and nodular limestones : they contain Calamites 

 trunks of Dadoxylon materiarum, Lepidodendron, Pecopteris and 

 Neuropteris. Group 3 is made up of red and grey shales, grey, red 

 and brown sandstones, and a thin coal-seam five inches thick, with 



* "The Coal-fields of Saxony" as translated by Messrs Hill and Fairley, 

 ' Colliery Guardian,' April 23, 1875. 



t "On the Permian Bocks of North-eastern Bohemia," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. xix. p. 301 . 



\ " On the Upper Coal-measures of Eastern Nova Scotia," Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. vol. xxx. p. 212. 



