548 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETr. [Jime 1' 



18. On the Geological Peculiarities of that part of Central 

 Germany hnown as the Saxon Switzerland. By the late James 

 Clark, Esq., Directing Engineer of the Eoyal Arsenal, Naples ; 

 Captain in the Italian Marine ; Chevaher of the N"eapolitan Order 

 of Erancesco Primo, and of St. Stanislaus of Russia. 



[Communicated by Sir E. I. Murchison, Bart., K.C.B., F.E.S., F.G.S.] 

 [Abridged.] 

 The south-eastern part of Saxony, traversed by the Elbe, and 

 formerly called the Meissner-Hochland, consists of a plateau of 

 Quadersandstein cut into, especially in the northern portion, by 

 ravines and deep and rugged valleys, and bearing numerous rocky 

 precipitous hills, mostly of basalt, altogether forming the highly 

 picturesque and peculiar country known as the Saxon Swit- 

 zerland. At Pirna, on the north-west, the sandstone district is 

 450 feet above the sea and 120 feet above the river- valley ; and 

 it gradually increases in elevation towards the south-east until it 

 reaches 960 feet above the sea, forming an inclined and uneven 

 plateau, irregularly rectangular in form, about twenty miles long 

 from east to west, and fifteen miles broad from north to south, with 

 a mean elevation of about 640 feet. The plateau is traversed from 

 south-east to north-west by the Elbe, from Tetschen, in Bohemia, 

 to Pillnitz. Above the general level of the plateau rise a number 

 of isolated, picturesque, rocky eminences, which increase in height 

 gradually from north-west to south-east, thus coinciding with the 

 general inclination of the plateau; they are situated in some- 

 what straight and parallel lines, almost coincident with that part of 

 the river's course which is south-west to north-east from Schmitka 

 (near the Larger Winterberg) to Pirna, beyond the Barenstein. 



This sandstone region is bordered by the Lusatian granite hiUs 

 to the N.iN'.E., along an irregular line, running through Hinter- 

 Hermsdorf, Hohnstein, and Saxon Dittersbach, the last being 

 about five miles north of Pima. Its western edge abuts on the 

 schist and gneiss of the Erzgebirge. The southern boundary, from 

 Tyssa eastwards, consists of a line of broken and inclined cliffe 

 falling abruptly on the basaltic region of the Bohemian Mittel- 

 gebirge. To the east the Quader stretches far into Bohemia, 

 whilst patches also occur to the west of the plateau. 



The Quader and its fossils have been fully described by the 

 German geologists, as well as the Planer, which, underlying the 

 former, comes out in the Elbe YaUey below Pirna. At Dresden 

 the Quader and Planer together were found (in an Artesian bore) 

 to have a thickness of about 800 feet, and to repose on the Eoth- 

 liegendes. At about twenty-two miles to the south-east is the 

 Larger Winterberg, having a height of 1653 feet, exclusive of its 

 basaltic cap ; and as the Elbe at its foot is 360 feet above the sea, 

 there is a thickness of 1293 feet for the Quader, without reckoning 

 what may be below the river-level. This, however, is probably 

 not much; for at Niedergrund, about four miles further up the 



