320 
SILURIA. 
[Chap. XIII. 
stances had once been regularly stratified. This phenomenon, in a tract the 
northern part of which is characterized by stratified rocks of the same age and 
of no great thickness, affords a strong argument in favour of metamorphic action 
having proceeded from great depths, and of its having acted in this expansive 
manner along a line of fissure. 
That this huge and irregular mass of gypsum at Frankenhausen is the result 
of a great change is proved by proceeding from the north southwards, along the 
highroad which traverses the Kyfhauser promontory. There the lower flag- 
like calcareous layers of the Zechstein are seen to slope away regularly, at 
a small angle from the red sandstones on which they repose. Next, after 
some contortions, the whole rocky precipitous cliff, from the summits of which 
the watch-towers of the ancient town of Frankenhausen frown over the southern 
plains of red land, is seen to consist of gypsum, in most of which there is no re- 
gularity of stratification. The bore-hole at the base of this cliff was also 
chiefly made in gypsum ; but M. von Dechen informs me that there were occa- 
sional interpolations of limestone and argillaceous schist with various sand- 
stones t ; so that, whilst the German geologists consider this gypseous mass to 
be subordinate to the Upper Zechstein only, I would suggest that the fact of 
the intermixture of such mineral substances looks very like the result of a great 
disturbance, accompanied by a considerable change of character in the rock. My 
own views are expressed in this generalized woodcut : — 
Relations of G-ypsum to the Zechstein at and near Frankenhausen. 
N. S. 
South edge of the 
Kyfhauser Hills. Frankenhausen. 
d. Lower Roth-liegende. e. Upper Roth-liegende. g. Zechstein. 
g*. Altered Zechstein and gypsum. 
The phenomenon of the vast expansion of gypsum occurs at various other 
places on the southern flank of the Harz, and is strikingly demonstrated at Ar- 
tern, ten miles east of Frankenhausen, and probably on the same line of meta- 
morphism. There, according to von Dechen, the strata, consisting of — 1st, over- 
lying red sandstone ; 2ndly, gypsum ; 3rdly, Zechstein in the form of stinkstein ; 
4thly, gypsum — were penetrated both by shaft and borings to the depth of 1017 
feet before the rock-salt was reached %. 
In this way we obtain evidence that in Northern Germany, just as in the south- 
eastern Steppes of the Kirghis to the south of Orenburg § in Russia, the rock-salt 
and gypsum are fairly subordinate to the Permian group, both these mineral 
masses having apparently resulted from metamorphic action. 
t I am indebted to my friend Geheimrath the west of the Thuringerwald, and which German 
H. von Dechen, the celebrated geologist (to whose geologists have placed in the Bunter Sandstein, 
great map I shall hereafter have occasion to re- really rise, like the salines of Frankenhausen, 
fer), for all the information I possess respecting Artern, and many other places, from rock-salt 
the borings at Frankenhausen. He further states subordinate to the Permian group. The shafts at 
that the gypsum was traversed by numerous Salzungen having passed through the red sand- 
cracks, the deepest of which was seen at 743 feet stone, borings were made to a depth of 500 feet, in 
below the surface, such cracks being filled with which gypsum was traversed, as well as dark ar- 
sand and pebbles. gillaceous strata. 
I After a visit to Salzungen in the company of § 1 Russia and the Ural Mountains,' vol. i. 
the late Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, I infer p. 184. 
that the saline waters of that place, which lie to 
