Chap. XIII.] 
PEEMIAN EOCKS IN BOHEMIA. 
323 
boundary, it may be said that, where the Permian group maintains its full cha- 
racters, lithological, zoological, and geological, it is a northern deposit. Drifted 
blocks at Spitzbergen indicating its presence in that region *, we have evidence of 
its presence in the most northern parts of Eastern Europe, extending even to the 
"White Sea, and ranging southwards throughout Russia, and on the western 
flanks of the Ural Mountains, to beyond 50° of north latitude, south of Orenburg. 
In following this parallel to the west, we see that it passes by the northern foot 
of the Carpathians, and that, trending between the Riesengebirge and the Alps, 
it traverses the smaller German States and the North of France, to the south of 
the British Isles, thus leaving to the north all that portion of Europe in which 
any Permian rocks are known. This geographical feature is dwelt upon because 
it is essential to observe that, in following the group in Germany from north to 
south, it is found to part with its principal calcareous centre and fossiliferous 
member. Thus, to refer once more to the region of the Thiiringerwald, rendered 
so classic by the map of that sound geologist Oredner, and illustrated by the able 
publications of Professor Senft and Baron Schauroth the palaeontologist of Co- 
burg, the Permian rocks are seen to part with their calcareous centre as we track 
them southwards to the district lying between Neustadt and Kronach f in Ba- 
varia. There, huge accumulations of the Roth-liegende, overlapping in highly 
inclined positions a thin coal-field, are surmounted by a very poor and meagre 
band of limestone, which further southwards is entirely lost. Again, in ap- 
proaching the Riesengebirge from the southern part of Prussia on the north, the 
Zechstein is exhibited for the last time in the tract near Lowenberg, south of 
Liegnitz. There that rock, resting upon Roth-liegende, and dipping under red 
sandstone, is, as in other places, a poor and thin deposit when compared with its 
equivalents on the flanks of the Harz and the Thiiringerwald. 
As soon as we enter into the Riesengebirge, and thence travel southwards 
through Bohemia, or even through the southern parts of Saxony, from the envi- 
rons of Dresden, we nowhere meet with a Zechstein formation like that of 
Northern Germany. In all this southern region the lower member of the group, 
preserving locally the ordinary characters of the Roth-liegende of the northern 
and western tracts, is one great series of sandstones and conglomerates, which, 
as in -the Thiiringerwald and the Harz, is ushered in with the evolution of por- 
phyries. In this series are found many fossil Plants, with here and there cal- 
careous courses, often characterized by Ichthyolites of the genera Palaeoniscus, 
Pleuracanthus %, Acanthodes, &c. 
Whilst the Ichthyolites of these Permian strata south of the Riesengebirge are 
like those of the Zechstein, except in the case of one of the genera known in the 
Carboniferous rocks, they differ from the latter, as will presently be shown, in 
specific characters. In Lower Silesia, and particularly in the district between 
Friedland on the north and Braunau on the south, the lower members of these red 
rocks are finely laminated red sandstones, associated with, and in part reposing on, 
red porphyry ; they are covered by other sandstones and conglomerates, and con- 
tain within themselves courses of darkish grey or reddish thin-bedded limestone 
charged with Fishes. In examining a dark band of these limestones at Oel Berg- 
near Braunau §, I could not avoid being struck with the analogy of its position 
* See description of the fossils from Spitzbergen gende, and others in valleys below the natural 
by Leopold von Buch, and also by de Koninck and escarpments of the red rock. 
Salter. J According to Sir P. Egerton, Xenacanthus, 
t This interesting district was visited by me in Pleuracanthus, and Diplodus are all the same 
1854, accompanied by Professor Morris, when we genus. 
were much indebted to M. Biittner of Kronach for § Accompanied by Prof. Eupert Jones, I was 
conducting us to good sections of the coal-pits, conducted to this spot by my very intelligent bo- 
some of which are worked under the Eoth-lie- tanical friend Dr. Beinert of Charlottenbrunn. 
