1 10 Proceedings of the British Association. 



1. Coal shales, coal, &c. — a productive coal-field. 2. Millstone grit series, 

 with many impressions of small plants, and occasional thin seams of coal. 

 .'5. Thinly laminated carbonaceous sandstones and shales, containing 

 many plants, together with bands of flat bedded, black, bituminous 

 limestone and shale, charged with Posidonia and Goniatites, and alter- 

 nating with courses of " Kiesel schiefer," or, flinty slate. 4. Carbonifer- 

 ous limestone, of great thickness, like the British, and loaded with many 

 well-known fossils. 5. Devonshire rocks, black schists, grey and red 

 sandstones, with occasional calcareous courses, and numerous fossils, the 

 old graywacke of the Germans. The order and sequence of these strata 

 are indicated and maintained along the lower edge of the whole range 

 of the Westphahan coal-field, the beds necessarily rising to the surface 

 at angles of 30° to 40°, in perfect conformity, and showing throughout 

 the clearest and most complete transition into each other. It was parti- 

 cularly to the group No. 3, that Mr. Murchison directed attention, being 

 quite identical with the culm-bearing strata of North Devon and Corn- 

 wall, first described by him and Prof. Sedgwick as a portion of a true 

 coal-field, and as not belonging to the graywacke, or older transition 

 rocks — (see Athen. No. 461.) The Westphalian sections establish the 

 geological position of the Biddeford culm strata more clearly than any 

 stratigraphical evidence in Great Britain, by presenting five masses of 

 unequivocal mountain limestone, rising from beneath the black lime- 

 stone and culmiferous schists, and thus the precise age of the latter is 

 demonstrated. In regard to the rocks of the Devonian system, or old 

 graywacke, which support in mountain masses the carboniferous system 

 above alluded to, Mr. Murchison offered a brief and general sketch, pro- 

 mising, that in the ensuing session of the Geological Society Mr. Sedg- 

 wick and he will show that these rocks fairly represent the British old 

 red sandstone, or Devonian system. This latter term foreign geologists 

 do not seem disposed to adopt, although it might save much confusion, 

 it being now ascertained that black and slaty rocks occupy, in very ex- 

 tended districts, the same geological position as the red rocks of Here- 

 fordshire. Proofs of the existence of the same order and succession will 

 be hereafter pointed out in the countries of the Hartz and the Fichtelge- 

 birge, as well as upon both sides of the Rhine, while a splendid de- 

 velopment of the still older Silurian rocks, both upper and lower, will 

 be pointed out, chiefly on the left bank of the Rhine, also in Belgium, 

 at Liege, and Narnur. 



Mr. Greenough was inclined now to coincide with Mr. Murchison in 

 opinion as to the age of the culm-bearing strata of Devonshire. — Mr. 

 De la Beche said he was open to conviction on perfect evidence, and 

 that the proofs brought forward from Germany had been the best as 

 yet afforded by Mr. Murchison. — Mr. Williams could not give in his 

 adhesion ; and Dr. Buckland was glad that one opponent still remained 

 to the new theory. — Mr. Lyell referred to Mr. Lonsdale, who had been 

 the main instrument in determining the age of the Devonian rocks. By 



