Chap. XV.] 
PALAEOZOIC ROCKS OF GERMANY. 
389 
same movements of elevation, contortion, and dislocation, all these lower 
rocks have been abruptly separated from the Upper Coal-strata. 
This great physical ruptnre, which pervaded Germany and Prance, and 
has been duly noticed by M. Elie de Beaumont, has, however, its well- 
defined limits even in Europe ; for, grand as it may be, the phenomenon 
is local only, and has not extended to Russia on the east, or to Britain on 
the west. 
The reader must also be reminded that the region of Central Germany 
which has been most adverted to exhibits clearly the intimate dependence 
of physical outline on eruptive igneous agency. In the Thiiringerwald, 
and, as will presently be shown, in the Harz, all these older rocks, termi- 
nating with the Lower Carboniferous strata, which have the original im- 
press of a strike from N.E. to S.W., were so affected by the grand erup- 
tions of porphyry and other igneous masses which prevailed in the earlier 
part of the Permian era, that both chains then acquired directions at right 
angles to the original strike of their oldest strata. 
