GEOLOGICAL NOTES IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION, 



391 



earliest stratified azoic rocks. Tlie Laurentian and Iluronian rocks of 

 Canada arc indeed the ^rand title-page and jn-efaoe to the ponderous and 

 intensely interesting volume of paleontological geology. 



ZoLLVEEEiN (Prussia). — Into the court of whatever country M'e go we 

 are certain to find most instructive nuiterial. Unfortnnately it wants, 

 however, the previous knowledge of the geologist or mineralogist to be 

 able to read the lesson to be learnt. It is not fanciful geology we must 

 expect to find, although the Exhibition is not ^^■ithout some most interesting 

 and instructive collections of fossils, and of plants and trees, and wooct, 

 birds, beasts and fishes, which go far towards unriddling many an organic 

 fragment of the past, and many an artificial compound tliat goes to sliow 

 how their roek-tombs were built up. But it is hard, honest, practical 

 geology that the Exhibition teaches ; it shows geology in its useful phases 

 amongst the economic sciences of mankind. It is not according to their 

 age or their organic contents that we find the specimens arranged, but 

 according to their commercial value and importance. 



First, then, in the categories of all nations comes coal, then the metal?, 

 then other substances, and so on from the most important to the most rare 

 or least useful. In the ZoUverein court there is an extensive suite of 

 specimens illustrating its chief coal-fields, namely ; those of the Hohe 

 Veen, the Westphalian mountains,, the Hundsriick, the Black Forest 

 (Schwarzwald), tlie Teutobiirgerwald, and the Wiehegebirge, the Thii- 

 ringerwald, the ITartz mountains, tlie Eiver Saale district, Erzgebirge in 

 the kingdom of Saxony, liiesengebirgc, and Upper Silesia. Descriptions 

 and comparisons of these with our English beds would be highly instruc- 

 tive, did space permit; but it will be more interesting to pass on to those 

 other coal-beds occurring in other formations, of which we either have no 

 traces or only but little developed representatives. Proceeding upward 

 from the carboniferous formation we find coal-seams (Lettenkohle) existing 

 in the lower beds of the Keuper or new red marl on the eastern side of the 

 Black Forest, between the Schwarzwald and Odenwald. In Wiirtcmberg 

 also these seams appear near Oedendort and Eiitcndorf, Nvhere they are 

 used for the alum-works, and near Mittelbronn. where they are obtained 

 for general burning purposes. Coal-seams likewise appear at other 

 points in the lower part of the Keuper formation as well as in the upper, 

 but not in a workable condition. The only places where available seams 

 have been discovered in the Oolite formation are to the north of the Hartz 

 Mountains, in the Prussian district of Wansleben and iN^euhaldensleben ; 

 near Gnasleben and Briinnen, in the Duchy of Brunswick ; and near 

 "VVelfensleben, where the iron -pyrites which accompany the coal are used 

 at the vitriol-works. The AYealden strata only appear on the north- 

 western ridges of the Ilercyuian hills. 



On the western edge of the Teutobiirgerwald, in the district of Tecklen- 

 burg, Westphalia, a small seam of coal is seen in them on the road from 

 Miinster to Ibbenbliren, and two seams are met -with near Tecklenburg, 

 for a distance of 2 miles ; the thicker one is 9 inches. In the district of 

 Osnabriick, in Hanover, there are 4 seams, containing 8 to 10 feet of coal : 

 three of the seams ofler good caking coal, the fourth is impure. Their 

 south-western continuation is found in the Prussian department of ]\Iinden, 

 where 4 seams, eijual altogether to 0 feet of coal, have been worked for a 

 long time. On the northern side of the AViehegebirge, and near the river 

 AVeser, there are seams of far greater importance and extent. In the 

 de])arlment of Alinden 2 or 3 seams are known, the lowest of which is 10 

 to 18 inches thick, and workabh^ ; all"ording caking coal in the eastern jiart, 

 whilst the western is anthracitic. The scam has been w orn on the right 



