Chap. XIII.] 
UPPEE PERMIAN IN GERMANY. 
317 
numerous and well-known fossil Fishes, which is succeeded by the thick-bedded 
Zechstein, g, and its overlying dolomitic members and thin layers of fetid lime- 
stone, the ' Stinkstein ' of the Germans. In other sections on the sides of 
the Thuringerwald gypsum occurs (and occasionally in large masses) in this 
upper limb of the limestone, as at Rheinhardts Brunnen on the east, and 
again near Liebenstein on the west ; but on either side of Eisenach the do- 
lomite is simply succeeded by thin-bedded upper courses of fetid limestone or 
Stinkstein. 
Here, however, as indeed everywhere in this region of Germany, the highest 
calcareous layers of the Zechstein are conformably overlain by red shale and 
sandstone, somewhat calcareous in some of its beds, and passing upwards into 
flaggy red sandstone (h, in the foregoing section). This last-mentioned rock 
was formerly classed by native geologists with the overlying Bunter Sand- 
stein j as, however, it forms the natural cap of the Zechstein, I united it 
with that rock — the more so as throughout large regions of Russia it is in 
marls, sandstones, and conglomerates lying above the Zechstein with fossils 
that Plants and Proterosauri are found which are identical with species from 
the Roth-liegende of Germany beneath that limestone. 
In addition to the proofs drawn from the environs of Eisenach *, many other 
sections precisely similar might be cited from either flank of the Thiiringer- 
wald, the details of which are given elsewhere j for, whether we refer to the 
eastern side of the northern portion of the chain at Schmerbach, Kabarz, and 
Seebach, or to the western side at Kupfersuhl, Glucksbrunn, and Marksuhl, the 
subdivisions of the Permian group are seen to be naturally united f. 
A similar order is observable in the undulating region which extends north- 
westwards from Reichelsdorf to the banks of the Fulda. Whilst the Kupfer- 
Schiefer of the tract around Reichelsdorf has afforded numerous fossil Fishes 
and other remains, it is on the right bank of the Fulda, betwren Rotheburg and 
Altmorschen, on the north side of the railroad leading to Cassel, that the clearest 
evidences are afforded of that transition from the Zechstein upwards into over- 
lying sandstones on which I lay so much stress. There the Zechstein is observed 
to form the central mass of the red hills, having in its higher part large masses 
of gypsum, more or less amorphous, which are capped by thin layers of fetid 
limestone. The upper bands of this limestone, parting with their calcareous 
matter, gradually pass up into red schistose and flagstone layers and red and 
green marls, the whole covered by whitish-coloured pebbly sandstones. All 
this succession is often clearly exposed in one and the same hill, the strata being 
slightly inclined to the north. 
A like succession is further traceable along the eastern face of the older 
schistose rocks (chiefly Devonian), which range from Marsberg and Arolsen by 
Sachsenhausen, and are even traceable at Marburg. Reappearing in the broad 
Permian tracts of the Wetterau, the same relations are prolonged to the environs 
of Hanau, east of Frankfort on the Maine \. 
* The explorer who has only a few hours at his and Lower Bunter Sandstein were so correctly 
disposal should walk up the high ground called laid down by M. Ludwig in the Geological Map 
Goppels Hiippe, S.E. of Eisenach, and there see of the country to the JST.E. of Frankfort, that the 
how conformably the Zechstein is capped by the geologist has but to unite these three under one 
red ' Sand-Schiefer' (see the section at p. 315). name, and he has at once the Permian group. 
t For detailed illustrations of this order of the The finest collection of the fossils from the Zech- 
Permian rocks on the flanks of the Thitringer- stein of the Wetterau is in the possession of M. 
wald, see the transverse sections, pi. 3, which ac- Koessler of Hanau. Numerous Permian species 
company M. Credner's Geological Map ; also the of Mollusks, Corals, Entomostraca, &c. which are 
memoir by myself and Professor Morris, Quart, common to Britain on the west and Eussia on the 
Journ. Geol. Hoc. vol. xi. p. 424, with sections. east, are found at the localities of Selters, Blei- 
l The divisions of Eoth-liegende, Zechstein, chenbach, Hajgriinden, Biidingen, Kuckingen, &c. 
