Ch. XV.] 



BROWN COAL OF GERMANY. 



191 



quadrupeds. Several mammalia, proper to the Upper Eocene series, are 

 also said to be associated ; but there being no good section at Eppelsheim, 

 the true succession of the beds from which the bones were dug out cannot 

 be seen, and we have yet to learn whether some remains of an older series 

 may not have been confounded with those of a newer one. 



Brown coal of Germany. — In a recent essay on the Brown Coal de- 

 posits of Germany, Baron Von Buch has expressed a decided opinion 

 that they all belong to one epoch, being of subsequent date to the great 

 nummulitic period, and older than the Pliocene formations. He has 

 therefore called the whole Miocene. Unfortunately, these formations 

 rarely contain any internal evidence of their age, except what may be 

 derived from plants, constituting in every case but a fraction of an 

 ancient Flora, and consisting of mere leaves, without flowers or fruits. 

 It is often therefore impossible to form more than a conjecture as to 

 the precise place in the chronological series which should be assigned 

 to each layer of lignite or each leaf-bed. Nevertheless, enough is known 

 to show that some of the Brown Coals found in isolated patches be- 

 long to the Upper Eocene, others to the Miocene, and some perhaps 

 to the Pliocene eras. They seem to have been formed at a period when 

 the European area had already a somewhat continental character, so that 

 few contemporaneous marine or even fiuvio marine beds were in progress 

 there. 



The brown coal of Brandenburg, on the borders of the Baltic, under- 

 lies the Hermsdorf tile-clay already spoken of, and therefore belongs to 

 a period at least as old as the Upper Eocene. The brown coal of 

 Radoboj, on the confines of Styria, is covered, says Von Buch, by beds 

 containing the marine shells of the Vienna 

 basin, which, as before remarked, are chiefly 

 of the Falunian or Miocene type. This 

 lignite, therefore, may be of Miocene or 

 Upper Eocene date, a point to be deter- 

 mined by the botanical characters of the 

 plants. In this, and most of the principal 

 brown coal formations, several species of 

 fan-palm or Flabellaria abound. This genus 

 also appears in the Middle Eocene or Bern- 

 bridge beds in the Isle of Wight, and in the 

 gypseous series of Montmartre ; but it is still 

 more largely represented in the Upper Eo- 

 cene series, accompanied by palms of the 

 genus Pkoenicites. Various cones, and the 

 leaves and wood of coniferous trees, are also 

 met with at Radoboj. Species also of 

 Comptonia and Myrica, with various trees, 

 such as the plane or Platanus, are recog- 

 nized by their leaves, as also several of the Laurel tribe, especially one, 

 called Daphnogene cinnamomifolia (fig. 169) by Unger, who, together 



Fig. 169. 



Daphnogene cinnamomifolia, 

 Altsattel, in Bohemia'. 



