20 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



table matter as the colossal Sigillarise. In general the greater part 

 of the Lower Silesian coals may be described as Stigmaria-coal. 



Among forty-six pits in Lower Silesia which I visited, only ten 

 furnished more or less distinct remains of Sigillaria, and only in one, 

 the Sophia-pit in the county Glatz, can we reckon with any certainty 

 to find specimens even in a large quantity of coal ; whereas in the 

 eighty pits in Upper Silesia, there are only about six in which these 

 plants have not been observed, and how abundant they are in the 

 others has been already mentioned. 



3. In Upper Silesia thick seams of coal, extending over many 

 leagues, show similar external peculiarities, and appear also composed 

 of plants of the same genus or species. The coal-seams in the pits 

 on the Przemsa near Myslowitz, whence they extend to the free state 

 of Cracow and to Dombrowa and Jaworzno, are an example of this. 



The same thing is seen in Lower Silesia also, though,, from the 

 smaller extent of the beds, not over such wide distances. 



4. Superimposed seams of coal exhibit distinct physical peculia- 

 rities and distinct vegetable contents, as is particularly seen in the 

 different beds of the Friedrich's pit, of that at Dombrowa, of the 

 Queen-Louisa pit, &c. In Lower Silesia the less distinct vegetable 

 structure of the coal compels us to consider chiefly its physical pecu- 

 liarities, but these lead to similar results. In a few places plants 

 furnish also some information. 



5. The slate-clays and sandstones resting on the coal-deposits are 

 not synchronous in age with them, but have been deposited after the 

 formation of the latter. This appears not only from the diversity of 

 the floras they contain, but especially from the relation of the slate- 

 clays to the inferior coals, since the slate-clays and sandstones exhibit 

 impressions of the plants still preserved in the coal, as is seen not 

 only in Lower Silesia in the Carl-Gustav pit near Charlottenbrunn, 

 but in many places in Upper Silesia, on the most magnificent scale, 

 over spaces many fathoms wide, in the open workings common there. 



6. A considerable diversity also appears in the flora contained in 

 the different beds of slate-clay in Upper Silesia. The same mode of 

 distribution occurs here as in the coal. The ferns, so remarkably 

 common in other coal-deposits, are, with the exception of a few points, 

 in the Agnes- Amande pit at Konigshiitte near Zalenze, among the 

 most sparingly distributed plants. This contributes to confer on the 

 fossil flora of Upper Silesia a very monotonous character. I have also 

 proved most distinctly the diversity of the flora contained in the indivi- 

 dual beds of slate-clay interstratified among the coal-seams in several 

 points in Lower Silesia. Among the families of plants the ferns 

 almost everywhere predominate, as well in regard to the quantity of 

 the mass, as the multitude of the species ; but in most locahties 

 associated with plants from all the families known in the coal-forma- 

 tion, so that a great variety is here the chief character of the carbo- 

 niferous vegetation in contradistinction to the uniformity prevailing 

 in Upper Silesia. 



7. Wherever it is possible to make observations of this kind, 

 either in or upon the coal, or in the slate-clays, no doubt is left that 



