ON ORES OF MERCURY IN THE COAL FORMATION. 33 
northern declivity of the mountain chain, and even there only at a 
small elevation. On the southern declivity they are entirely absent. 
These facts seem to show that the first elevation of the Alburs 
mountains immediately succeeded the Jura formation, and that a 
second elevation took place after the cretaceous beds and the num- 
mulite limestone were deposited on its northern declivity. This 
second event gave their dip to the last-named beds. Their inclina- 
tion may however be ascribed to the falling in of the basin in which 
the Caspian sea now exists, since the whole extensive plain which 
lies opposite the mountain chain has a very unusual elevation above 
the level of the Caspian. 
4. As the mountain limestone in general occupies the highest points 
of that portion of these mountains in which the coal formation occurs, 
we may expect to find the latter also m Russian Trans-Caucasia, for 
in the province of Karabach the mountain limestone with the litho- 
graphic stones overlying it forms immense mountains. The fortress 
Schuscha is placed on one of these mountains ; and the rock is seen 
in the district of Jelisawetopol, near the village Saglik, in the neigh- 
bourhood of the alum quarries. 
[J. N.] 
On the Occurrence of Ores of Mercury in the Coal Formation of 
Saarbriick. By Herr von DEecHEN. 
[Kolnische Zeitung, Feb. 1847. Extracted in Leonhard and Bronn’s Jahrbuch, 
1847, p. 866.] 
In a lecture before the Society of the Lower Rhine, Herr von Dechen 
notices this smgular fact. These ores are in general very rare ; and 
in this place occur in the upper division of the carboniferous group, 
in beds belonging to the productive coal formation, or even to a higher 
pait of the series, in which previously they were not known to be 
found in any part of the earth. In this district they are confined to 
its eastern portion ; Baumholder in the district of St. Wendel being 
the most western pomt where they have been found, the Kellerber 
near Weinsheim the most northern, Nack near Erbesbiidesheim the 
most eastern. They occur in veins in the normal beds of the coal 
formation, in the melaphyres, the amygdaloids and the felspar por- 
phyries ; these massive rocks lying within the range of the carboni- 
ferous strata. They are also found disseminated and in fissures in 
beds of sandstone of this formation, as at Miinster-Appel and Wald- 
grehweiler, wholly unconnected with true vems. The association with 
the ores of mercury of certain claystones and hornstones, which are 
not in general found so much developed in this formation, is very 
remarkable. Within the limits mentioned ores of mercury have been 
observed in thirteen different localities, some of which range in straight 
lines. The longest of these lines reaches from Katzenbach, over the 
Stahlberg, Landsberg near Obermoschel to the Kellerberg, and is 
about fourteen (three German) miles in extent. 
[J. No] 
