382 
SILUEIA. 
[Chap. XV. 
ites and roofing-slates with a greenish tinge (Schwartzburg, &c), that reminded 
us of the lower slates of Cumberland and Westmoreland. The whole of them 
were said to exhibit great undulations, but with a prevalent dip to the south- 
east, — to be powerfully affected by a slaty cleavage, — and to be surmounted by 
subcrystalline limestones with alum-slate (pyritous shale of Doschnitz, &c). 
These, again, were described as covered by other grey schists and greywacke, 
containing also courses of limestone ; and all such beds disappeared, we said, 
under more earthy and arenaceous strata, resembling the Devonian rocks of the 
Rhenish Provinces. Finding, however, no fossils except Encrinites in the lower 
part of these rocks, we could assign to them no more definite place than that 
they were probably of the age of the slates of the Ardennes. On the other 
hand, we regarded the fossiliferous limestones of Franconia (Elbersreuth, Hof, 
Gattendorff, &c), which are replete with Clymeniae, Goniatites, and Ortho- 
cerata, as being unequivocally of Devonian age ; and, lastly, by actual sec- 
tions, we confirmed the view of Count Minister derived from fossils only, and 
showed that the limestones and associated schists of Trogenau, Regnitz Losau, 
and Wurlitz near Hof were truly of the age of the Carboniferous or Mountain 
Limestone *. 
In calling attention to this view of the succession, which, in a subsequent visit 
with Professor Morris, I found to be correct, it is by no means contended that 
Professor Sedgwick and myself did more than throw out a general suggestion ; 
for at that time, not only was there no true geological survey of this compli- 
cated country, but not even any ordinary geographical map which could be 
depended on. In the quarter of a century which has since elapsed, good trigo- 
nometrical surveys have been made of large portions of the region ; able geolo- 
gists of Saxony and Meiningen have likewise constructed geological maps, and 
have described many fossils entirely unknown in earlier days. 
Thus Professors Naumann, Cotta, and Geinitz, in Saxony, and M. Richter of 
Saalfeld in Meiningen, have elaborately worked out the demarcation of the 
mineral masses of which these old rocks are composed ; and some having been 
found to contain Graptolites, Trilobites, and other ancient fossils, such inferior 
greywacke has very properly been referred by those authorities to the Lower 
Silurian f. With this view I quite agree, guarding the definition of the word 
' Lower Silurian ' by explaining that some of the black schists of this region 
which contain Graptolites may be of the age of that zone which forms the 
base of M. Barrande's Upper Silurian in Bohemia. 
The following, therefore, may be taken as a view of the succession, completing 
the first sketch by Sedgwick and myself : — 
1. Ancient rocks of the Thiiringerwald, consisting of greeuish talcose schists 
with white quartz -veins, which in former times afforded some gold. They 
range from Steinheide by Igleshieb, or from south-west to north-east, in asso- 
ciation with certain bands of ferruginous and purple-colouied greywacke not 
* The fossils collected in these limestones were 'well understand how that gentleman, from whom 
Productus punctatus, P. antiquatus, P. sublaevis, I experienced every courtesy when I visited 
P. pustulosus, a large Orthis near to O. crenistria, Steinach, should have been led to indicate an 
Phill., Chonetes papilionacea, Euomphalus pen- order of strata whereby the rocks which are 
tangulatus, and several Corals of the genera Sy- really Devonian were placed under the Lower- 
ringopora, Cyathophyllum, &c, — a perfectly Car- Silurian greywacke. The formations referred by 
boniferous assemblage. him to the Upper Silurian, under the names of 
t I must not omit to add to this list the name Wenlock, Aymestry, Ludlow, &c. (Zeit. deutsch. 
of M. Engelhardt of Ober- Steinach, who has made geol. G-esellsch. Berlin, vol. iv. p. 234), are for the 
a large collection of fossils, some of which are most part Devonian, as proved by fossils ; but, not 
manifestly of Lower Silurian, and others of De- relying on my own judgment only, I obtained the 
vonian age. The strata near that place are so opinion of M. Barrande, which confirmed my own 
dislocated and in great part inverted, that I can views. 
