298 Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison on the 



We saw no reason for placing these rocks in a class different from that of the rocks between the 

 Schwartza and the Saal near Saalfeld. We are informed, that rocks, of nearly similar structure, range 

 (with countless undulations and numerous interruptions from ridges of trap) many miles further towards 

 the south ; and that a few Silurian fossils and a few impressions of plants have been found in some of 

 their subordinate beds ; in which case they may be classed with the fossiliferous grauwacke of the Rhine. 

 Without venturing an opinion on a point we were prevented from examining personally, we may remark 

 that the whole series appears to be overlaid by the highly fossiliferous limestones and slates south of Hof 

 in the Ober Frankenwald, which we next proceed to notice. 



Sections of Hof , Elbersreuth, S^c. (Plate XXIII. Sections 15 and 16.) 



Having been furnished with instructions by Count Miinster (whose unceasing 

 labours and numerous works have thrown so much light on the palaeontology of 

 his country), w^e went from Baireuth to Hof; and during one or two short excur- 

 sions from the latter place, collected together the facts represented in the section, 

 PI. XXIII. fig. 15. 



On our w^ay to Hof we crossed the escarpments of the muschelkalk and hunter 

 sandstein, and then entered on a defile among the older rocks at Bernich, from 

 which place we skirted the north flank of the Fichtelgebirge, among crystalline 

 slates and other altered deposits associated with granite. In the early part of this 

 traverse we found a boss of porphyry, throwing oflf a mass of crystalline marble on 

 one side, and of a thin-bedded encrinite limestone, alternating with schaalstein, on 

 the other. The same series of beds was overlaid, near Latziiruck, by schaalstein 

 passing into slaty porphyry. 



We have no materials for marking the age of this limestone ; and we mention 

 these facts only to show the near analogies of structure exhibited in this country 

 and in certain parts of the Hartz and of Nassau. We believe, however, that these 

 analogies are presented by rocks nearly of the same age : for, if we mistake not, 

 some of the crystalline and calcareous masses on the north flank of the Fichtelge- 

 birge are only metamorphic portions of a series of rocks we are ahout to describe 

 in the accompanying section (PI. XXIII. fig. 15). 



1. The highest calcareous bands of our section occur at Trogonau ; but they also break out at Reg- 

 nitz, Irsau, and Wvirlitz. They are composed of dark blue, uneven beds of limestone, with white contem- 

 poraneous veins, dipping with some irregularity, but on the whole to the S.E. at an angle of 25° or 30°. 

 They are overlaid by a dark shale, which is lost under the black shale and alluvium of the plains 

 below. In structure this limestone cannot be distinguished from the most common form of mountain 

 limestone : and it contains Actinocrinites, Rhodocrinites verus, Amplexus coralloides (Sow.), several verr 

 large Productce (one of which is spined), Euomphali, and several mountain limestone corals, &c. We 

 therefore think its identification with the mountain limestone (as determined by Count Miinster) quite 

 unequivocal. 



2. The limestone is underlaid by earthy, dark-coloured schist, very ill exposed, over which we made 

 a traverse of one or two miles to Gattendorf. 



3. At Gattendorf rises a lower limestone composed of dark grey, and in some places of reddish grey 



