AND TRIAS OF CENTRAL EUROPE. 391 
dolomit of Central Germany) is overlain by the lowest Bunter 
strata. On this point it is only necessary to refer to the papers and 
correspondence which appeared in the ‘ Geological Magazine’ during 
the year 1882 *, 
We must now refer to actual sections for evidence of a con- 
siderable break in time between the deposition of the Zechstein and 
that of the Bunterschiefer. 
1. The first section will be found described in the ‘ Sitzungs- 
berichte’ of the ‘Isis’ in Dresden for last year, by Hr. A. Ditt- 
marsch. It is at Ostrau, in the eastern part of the kingdom of Saxony. 
With the aid of sectional drawings, Dittmarsch has given a very 
complete description of the sections at Ostrau, showing that the 
subjacent Zechstein (Plattendolomit) must have been eroded, fissured, 
and partly destroyed, and the widened fissures subsequently filled 
up with brecciated masses of angular fragments of dolomite (now 
bound together by a calcareous matrix), before the deposition of 
the Bunterschiefer. 
‘«This section,” says Dittmarsch, “furnishes a limit in time between 
the Plattendolomit of the upper Zechstein and the lower thin-bedded 
strata of the Buntersandstein, which one ought not any longer to 
attempt to explain away by artificially-constructed theories.” 
2. I have examined and made sections of the quarries near 
Meerane as given in figs. 2-8, Prof. Geinitz having directed my 
attention to them. 
The sections (seven in number) on the fly-leaf form a con- 
tinuous series, extending for about a mile along the face of the 
hills which lie to the right hand of the road from Meerane to the 
village of Haidchen, near the western boundary of the kingdom 
of Saxony. Nothing can be clearer than the relation of the Zech- 
stein to the marly shales (Mergelschiefer) and the Lettensandstein 
(thin-bedded Buntersandstein) above. To make the full interpre- 
tation of the sections clearer, one or two remarks may be of some 
service, it being premised that the quarries are all open, and the 
sections fresh, so that these remarks record direct observations, and 
are not inferential. 
(1) The marly sandstones lie in all cases upon the highly eroded 
surface of the Plattendolomit (with Schizodus Schlothewmi) of the 
Upper Zechstein. 
(2) The erosion of the Zechstein is most pronounced. Not only is 
it water-worn (as the upper surface of the Magnesian Limestone is in 
our northern counties), but the extent to which subaerzal erosion has 
proceeded is very great. This is more evident in the sections than 
can be made clear fromadrawing. These dolomite crags, ona small 
scale, remind one of the atmospheric erosion of the Dolomite Alps, 
though the sharpness of their angles has been subsequently rounded 
off a little by the scouring action of sand and water previous to the 
deposition of the Sand- and Mergelschiefer upon them. 
(3) The upper series is most marly at the base, and becomes 
gradually more arenaceous as we pass upwards. Only occasionally 
* Decade ii. vol. ix. pp. 158, 219, 272, 316, 491, 528, 559. 
a ae ee 
