454 



Mr. Horner on the Geology of the Environs of Bonn. 



one of which is the end of the tail: there are no traces of bones, but there are impressions of 

 scales arranged in a diverging form downwards, on each side of a ridge : he calls it Ophis 

 dubius *. 



e. Remains of Quadrupeds. 



Professor Noggerath, in describing the eighteen different beds composing the brown-coal 

 formation at Putzberg near Friesdorff, speaking of the ninth bed from the surface, says that there 

 was once found in it a large tusk of a wild boar ; and of the eleventh bed, that there was found 

 in it the bone of the leg of an ox in a very complete state of preservation, together with some 

 other fragments of bones. An occurrence so important in the history of this formation led me to 

 call the attention of Professor Noggerath to these passages in his memoir ; when he informed me 

 that in drawing it up several years ago he had inserted several things on the authority of others : 

 that he has a distinct recollection of having seen the bones in the collection of a private indi- 

 vidual in Bonn, which has since been dispersed, but that he did not see them himself in situ. 

 Faujas St. Fond, in the memoir above quoted, says that a very old miner at Lieblar had told him 

 that he had fifteen years before that time found a stag's horn in the brown coal beds. 



Such is the whole result of my inquiry as to the existence of the remains of quadrupeds in the 

 brown-coal formation ; and unsupported as the facts are by any subsequent discoveries, very 

 little reliance can be placed upon their accuracy. 



The sandstone clay and lignite deposits above described constitute what 

 may properly be termed the brown-coal formation of this district^ but there 

 is a small local deposit which I have yet to notice, and which, if it belongs to 

 the same formation, is highly important as regards the question of age. In 

 a valley behind Godesberg lies the old monastery of Marienforst, and going 

 from thence to the village of Muffendorf, the path crosses the summit of the 

 plateau ; and here, about half way between the two places, there are strewed 

 upon the surface of the ground small blocks of a white siliceous stone, con- 

 taining casts of freshwater shells, with jointed stalks of a plant. Mr. Brassard, 

 late keeper of the University Museum at Popplesdorf near Bonn, conceived 

 that he had found the rock in situ at the same spotwhere the loose blocks occur, 

 and I accompanied Professor Noggerath and him to ascertain whether he was 

 right in his conjecture, by digging round the mass. Although the ground was 

 cleared away for some distance, and there was an excavation made in the rock 

 to the depth of two feet, it is possible that it may still be only a large block. 

 The stone is of a dull white colour, sometimes smoke gray like flint, generally 

 of an earthy, but often of a crystalline translucent texture : in some places it 



* Dr. Hibbert, in his History of the Extinct Volcanos in the Basin of Ncurvied, has given 

 a short account of the brown-coal formation of the Lower Rhine, which he says is drawn up from 

 the writings of the German geologists. He appears not to have seen the memoir of Professor 

 Goldfuss above mentioned, for he says, p. 86, that the brown-coal contains the remains of frogs 

 and lizards " still living". 



t In Von Moll's Jahrbuch, uti supra. 



