300 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



** Ossemens Fossiles" here, as well as in the greater part of 

 this compilation. 



The first we shall treat of are the Monitors, which are 

 found in the pyritous schists of Thuringia and other countries 

 of Germany. 



In almost all the parts of Thuringia and Voigtland, and in 

 the bordering portions of Hesse, as far even as into Franconia 

 and Bavaria, a bed of marly and bituminous schist predomi- 

 nates, which M. Werner regards as the lowest of what he 

 names the first formation of the secondary limestone, and 

 which is found for the most part strown with grains of cop- 

 pery pyrites, containing silver. It is worked in many places 

 for these two metals, though it does not produce them in any- 

 thing like abundance. It is of no great depth, rarely more 

 than two feet, and sometimes not above an inch or two in 

 thickness. It rests upon a red sandstone, which contains pit- 

 coal in divers places. Above the coppery slate are calcareous 

 strata, belonging to what geologists term the Alpine limestone, 

 containing the most ancient shells and zoophytes, such as 

 belemnites, &c. Above this is gypsum, accompanied with 

 mineral salt, which, in its turn, is surmounted by sandstone, 

 which is covered by a second sort of gypsum without salt, and 

 over it is another limestone analogous to that of Jura. In 

 some strata of the latter are those famous caverns, containing 

 the bones of bears, and other carnivora, mentioned in the 

 earlier part of this account of fossil remains. Thus we find 

 that this formation of bituminous schist is among the most 

 ancient of those which contain the debris of organized bodies. 



It is from these slates that an immense number of fossil fish 

 have been derived, which has rendered the districts of Mans- 

 field, of Eisleben, of Ilraenau, and other places of Thuringia 

 and Voigtland, so celebrated among the describers and collec- 

 tors of petrifactions. The general opinion is, that these fish 

 belonged to the fresh water, an opinion further corroborated 

 by the remains of oviparous quadrupeds of which we are about 



