324 
SILCJKIA. 
[Chap. XIII. 
and relations to those of the Zechstein of Northern Germany *. The limestone 
rests upon a black schistose bed, in which copper has been worked ; and the whole, 
reposing upon a vast thickness of red sandstone, is immediately and conformably 
surmounted by reddish, purplish, yellow, and whitish grits, sandstone, and shale. 
In other parts of Bohemia, Fishes similar to those of Braunau, Kiippersdorf, &c. 
have been detected in red flagstones. From what we saw, it is probable that 
there are two or more calcareous beds ; for the limestone at Halbstadt, only a 
few miles to the north of Braunau, is a red and deep-purple rock, wholly 
unlike that of the Oel Berg, and not containing Fishes. 
Again, in the very heart of the conglomerates which, though apparently the 
oldest beds, constitute alone the whole of the Permian rocks visible to the north- 
west of Friedland, limestones containing magnesia occur. These brecciated 
masses and their limestones are well exposed at Traut-Liebersdorf, where the 
transition from a calcareous conglomerate replete with angular fragments of 
quartz into a coarse calcareous grit, and from that into a limestone which at- 
tains a thickness of 30 feet, is readily seen. 
At the Oel Berg near Braunau t, Ichthyolites abound, with many good 
specimens of which I was supplied through the liberality of M. Benedict 
Schroll. These fossils have been submitted to the examination of Sir Philip 
Egerton, who has pronounced them to belong to the genera Palaeoniscus, 
Acanthodes, Xenacanthus (Pleuracanthus), &e.|. Of these Ichthyolites, the 
most striking and the largest is a Placoid Fish, with a strong defensive spine 
inserted immediately behind the head. This is the Xenacanthus (now more 
properly called Pleuracanthus §) Decheni of Beyrich. It is abundant at Braunau, 
together with three or four species of Palseoniscus, the chief of which, P. Vra- 
tislaviensis, occurs also at Ruppersdorf. Palaeoniscus lepidurus and another 
(like P. Voltzii) occur here or at Ottendorf. There is also a species of Acanthodes, 
a genus remarkable for its minute square scales. Now no one of these Fishes 
is of the same species as those of like genera which are found in the subjacent 
Carboniferous rocks. 
The same conclusion has been arrived at by Sir Philip Egerton in the exami- 
nation of the fossil Fishes of Klein Neundorf, which I brought home in 1857 
from the spot. Thus the Acanthodes gracilis from the bituminous schists of that 
locality, which have been considered to be subordinate to the Roth-liegende, 
has also been pronounced to be a species distinct from the A. Bronni of the Coal 
period, a generic resemblance only having led to an erroneous identification. 
To the west of this district there exists the re- 
markable petrified forest of Eadowenz and Buchau 
near Adersbach, described by Professor G-i5ppert, 
and to which M. Schroll and Dr. Beinert directed 
my attention : here thousands of tons of silicifled 
stems of trees, chiefly of the genus Araucarites, 
are found. I much regret not to have visited this 
sandstone tract, in order to satisfy myself if it 
really belongs to the Upper Coal, as suggested, or 
to the Lower Permian. The presence of the Car- 
boniferous plant Araucarites Brandlingii would 
by no means determine the question; for that 
plant does occur in true Eoth-liegende ; and Grop- 
pert has decided that at Eadowenz it is associated 
with the new form A. Schrollii. See a translation 
of Gtfppert's account of this tree-bearing sand- 
stone, as taken from the Memoirs of the Silesian 
Society, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3. vol. i. 
p. 236. 
* Professor Naumann has shown how such fish- 
beds occur very low indeed in the Permian rocks 
at Oschatz in 'Saxony. (See Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soc. Lond. vol. v. p. 2.) 
t My really scientific friend in this tract, and who 
was of great service to me, is the zealous botanist 
and palaeontologist, Dr. Beinert, of Charlotten- 
brunn, whose museum is most instructive, and 
whose beautiful Park, which he has opened to the 
public, is replete with the living and extinct forms 
of ^vegetable life, so placed in juxtaposition as to 
render it well worthy of a visit. 
I As all the species from the Eoth-liegende 
which have been rigidly compared by competent 
ichthyologists are found to be distinct from those 
of the Coal-deposits, I doubt the accuracy of M. 
Schnur, who has identified the Permian Xena- 
canthus Decheni with a fossil Fish of the Coal of 
Saarbruck. (See Zeitschr. G-eol. G-esells. vol. viii. 
p. 542.) A noble specimen of Xenacanthus De- 
cheni (15 inches long) from Eiippersdorf is to be 
seen in the Museum at Bonn (see Leonh. & 
Bronn's Neues Jahrbuch, 1849). 
§ See note by Sir P. Egerton in the Ann. of Nat. 
Hist, for Dec. 1857, vol. xx. p. 423. The author 
shows that Diplodus is founded on the teeth of 
this genus. 
