318 
SILTTRIA. 
[Chap. XIII. 
In all these countries, and throughout the region between the Thiiringerwald 
and the Harz, there is, I maintain, no difficulty whatever in separating the red 
rocks which form the natural cover of the Zechstein from the real formation 
of Bunter Sandstein, which is naturally connected with the Muschelkalk, 
and forms the true base of the Trias. On this point it may further be observed 
that in no part of Germany has there been detected in the sandstone forming 
the cap of the Zechstein a fossil which can be referred to a Mesozoic age ; 
whilst the only Plant found in such red rock is the Calamites arenaceus, Jager, 
which is manifestly a Palaeozoic form. 
Reverting to the great inferior member of the Permian group, attention should 
be specially paid to its extraordinary variation in thickness — a characteristic 
feature, indeed, of all conglomerates. Thus, whilst, as above cited, it has a thick- 
ness of 4000 feet at Eisenach, yet, near Schmerbach and Seebach, a few miles 
only west of that place, where porphyries rise up behind it, no more than 100 or 
200 feet of this deposit are exposed ; and yet we there see quite as clear and 
conformable a transition from the red rock beneath into the ' Weiss-liegende ' 
above it, and thence into the Kupfer-Schiefer and the overlying Zechstein, as in 
the large diagram at p. 315. 
Permian Rocks surrounding the Chain of the Harz. — The older sedimentary 
rocks constituting the nucleus of the Harz, and the chief eruptive rocks of that 
remarkable region, will be described in a subsequent chapter. The Permian 
deposits which form a girdle around that mountainous mass, which trends from 
W.N.W. to E.S.E., or nearly at right angles to the original direction of the 
older and elevated rocks, are quite analogous in their general relations to those 
of the Thiiringerwald and the broad tracts to the west of it ; but there are local 
features peculiar to the Harz which demand notice. As around the Thiiringer- 
wald, we equally well see the same ascending order of the three chief subdivisions, 
all symmetrically united in one physical group which is separated from the 
Upper Carboniferous rocks beneath, and from everything Triassic above it ; in 
like manner, also, the conglomerates of the Roth-liegende are found to be local 
accumulations only, extremely thick in some places, and very thin (or even dying 
out) in others. 
Referring to another work* for such variations of detail exhibited by the 
Roth-liegende and overlying deposits as are seen in the environs of Mansfeld 
and Eisleben, there are still, however, two features in the Permian group as 
exhibited in the region around the Harz which deserve notice. These are, that 
the lower members of the Roth-liegende, which are not exposed at Eisenach 
(p. 315), are much developed, and, next, that the upper member of the Zech- 
stein is more largely composed of masses of gypsum, often amorphous, and 
attaining enormous dimensions f. 
Although there are many places along the southern and eastern flanks of the 
Harz where the upper member of the Roth-liegende is well exhibited, par- 
ticularly in its relations to the overlying Zechstein, and of which proofs have 
already been given, the tract where the inferior member is, as far as I know, 
most fully displayed is on the northern escarpment of the bold Permian outlier 
the Kyf hauser — so called from the ruins of an imperial residence, of that name, 
which stands on one of the north-eastern summits of this hilly and insulated 
mass. 
* See memoir by myself and Prof. Morris, their copper, silver, and gypsum, have been de- 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xi. p. 409. scribed in detail by Mr. W. P. Jervis, F.Gr.S., in 
t The Permian rocks of Mansfeld, Eisleben, the 'Journal of the Society of Arts' (1861), vol. ix. 
and the Kyfhauser Hills, especially in relation to pp. 592, 603, 616, &c. 
