1868.] CLARK SAXON SWITZERLAND. 553 



and 6 feet broad occur almost as flat and equal in faces as dressed 

 blocks. 



The general direction of the two main lines of parting is about 

 N.N.W. to S.S.E., and W.N.W. to E.S.E. The deviations from these 

 (which may be called regular) lines do not exceed, save in rare in- 

 stances, 15° or 20° on either side, except in localities where the rock 

 appears to have been subjected to the influence of agencies entirely 

 unconnected with and difl'erent from those which originated the 

 fissures or determined their directions*. 



3. The remai'lcahle phenomena observable along the line of sepa- 

 ration between the Quader and the Lusatian Granite, bordering it to 

 the northward. — The relative positions of the Quader and associated 

 strata and of the syenite or granitic rocks along this line have been 

 closely observed and described by several geologists of high repute, 

 and have given rise to several hypotheses to account for the origin and 

 movements of the several rock masses. 



Weiss gave it as his opinion that the granite and syenite in a 

 hardened state, together with the calcareous strata of Holstein, 

 were by subterranean action forced upwards and sideways on to the 

 sandstone. 



Klipstein inclined to the theory that the granite was in its present 

 condition and relative position before the Cretaceous period, and that 

 the Quader was consequently deposited against, or under, the cliff's 

 which constituted its southern border. 



Gumprecht considered the granite and syenite of this region to be 

 coeval formations with the Quader ; that is to say, that the Lusatian 

 granite is a newer formation than the syenite of the left bank of 

 the Elbe, and that, if it be of plutonic origin, it broke through 

 a long rent in the older rocks a Uttle to the north of the Quader 

 border, which at that period formed the south shore of the channel 

 of drainage of the Bohemian Basin. The newly ejected granite, 

 running up to, and in some parts over, the sandstone, dammed up 

 that channel and converted the country lying to the south-east into 

 an inland sea, whose level rising over the new dam and sandstone 

 already deposited caused new deposits of the latter. In this man- 

 ner the origin of those isolated portions of Quader found here and 

 there outlying the main region to the west and north-west may, 

 he thinks, be accounted for as being portions of this second deposi- 

 tion, on parts of the granite lying at that period below the level of 

 the pent-up waters. 



Cotta appears to have been of opinion that the Quader of the Saxon 

 Switzerland extended originally much further to the north, covering 

 the granite, which at that period lay at one general level — and that 

 that portion of the latter rock which now forms the Lusatian hills 

 and the rest of the region to the northward of the border-line, with 

 the overlying sandstone, was uplifted at least a thousand feet, leaving 

 the part to the south of the line unmoved. The sandstone, thus 

 severed from and lifted above the rest, would, in the common nature 

 of things, be much fractured, and rendered exceedingly vulnerable 



* See Gutbier's ' Geognostische Skizzen aus der Sachsischen Scbweiz,' 1858. 



