Ch. XXTT/] keuper and muschelkalk formations. 



A single term, thus comprehending both. Upper and Lower New Red, 

 or the Triassic and Permian groups of modern classifications, may still 

 be useful in describing districts where we have to speak of masses of red 

 sandstone and shale, referable, in part, to both these eras, but which, in 

 the absence of fossils, it is impossible to divide. 



Trias or Upper JVeio Med Sandstone Group. 



The accompanying table will explain the subdivisions generally adopted 

 for the uppermost of the two systems above alluded to, and the names 

 given to them in England and on the Continent. 



Synonyms. 



Trias or Upper 

 New Red 

 Sandstone - 



a. Saliferous and gyp- ) 



German. 



seous shales and >■ Keuper - 

 sandstone - - } 



French. 

 - Marnes ixisees. 



b. (wanting in England) Musclielkalk - \ Muschelkalk ou cai- 



( caire coquillier. 



c. Sandstone and quart- ) Bunter-sand 

 zose conglomerate J stein - 



[• Gres bigarre. 



Fig. 424. 



I shall first describe this group as it occurs in Southwestern and 

 Northwestern Germany, for it is far more fully developed there than 

 in England or France. It has been called the Trias by German writers, 

 or the Triple Group, because it is separable into three distinct formations, 

 called the " Keuper," the " Muschelkalk," and the " Bunter-sandstein." 



The Keuper, the first or newest of these, is 1000 feet thick in Wiir- 

 temberg, and is divided by Alberti into sandstone, gypsum, and carbona- 

 ceous slate-clay.* Remains of Reptiles, 

 called Nothosaurus and Phytosaurus, have 

 been found in it with Labyrinthodon ; the 

 detached teeth, also, of placoid fish and of 

 rays, and of the genera Sauricthys and Gy- 

 rolepis (figs. 433, 434, p. 336). The plants 

 of the Keuper are generically very analogous 

 to those of the lias and oolite, consisting of 

 ferns, equisetaceous plants, cycads, and coni- 

 fers, with a few doubtful monocotyledons. A 

 few species, such as Equisetites columnaris, 

 are common to this group, and the oolite. 

 The Muschelkalk consists chiefly of a compact, grayish limestone, but 

 includes beds of dolomite in many places, together with gypsum and 

 rock-salt. This limestone, a rock wholly unrepresented in England, 

 abounds in fossil shells, as the name implies. Among the cephalopoda 

 there are no belemnites, and no ammonites with foliated sutures, as in 

 the incumbent lias and oolite, but a genus allied to the Ammonite, called 

 Ceratites by DeHaan, in which the descending lobes (see a, h, c, fig. 425) 

 terminate in a few small denticulations pointing inwards. Among the 



* Monog. des Bunten Sandsteins. 



Equisetites columnaris, (Syn. 

 Equiseturn, colwnnare.) Frag- 

 ment of stem, and small portion 

 of same magnified. Keuper. 



