Chap. XVI.] 
DEVONIAN ROCKS IN BELGIUM. 
399 
scribed by M. de Koninck as consisting of several bands. The lowest strata are 
quartzose, schistose, and calcareous, with partial conglomerates (Burnot), and 
exhibit few fossils; next, limestone laden with true Eifel fossils, including 
Phacops latifrons, Bronn, Bronteus flabellifer, Goldf., Cyrtina heteroclyta, De- 
france, with Stromatopora, Cyathophyllum, and many other Corals. 
A thin course of limestone with Calceola sandalina succeeds, and a suite 
of fossils which occur in the Devonshire limestones of Plymouth, Newton Bu- 
shel, and Chircombe Bridge, and are unknown in France and in the Harz. 
Among these are Phragmoceras pyriforme, Goldf., Cyrtoceras nodosum, Bronn, 
Orthoceras nodulosum, Schloth., Acroculia prisca, Goldf., Bellerophon tubercu- 
latus, Feruss., Lucina proavia, Goldf., Streptorhynchus umbraculum, von Buch, 
Spirifer speciosus, Goldf., Sp. laevicosta, Schloth., Sp. curvatus, Schloth., 
Rhynchonella primipilaris, von Buch, with two species of Cupressocrinus. This 
group, according to M. de Koninck, occurs also in China and Australia. 
The upper portion of the Middle Devonian consists of the limestone with 
Stringocephalus Burtini and other well-known fossils, namely Uncites gryphus, 
Schloth., Megalodon cucullatus, Goldf., Murchisonia bigranulosa, d'Arch., Ma- 
crocheilus arculatus, Goldf., and Sphserocrinus geometricus, Goldf. In placing 
this bed at the summit of the Middle Devonian or Eifelian group, M. de Koninck 
is in accordance with Ferd. Homer and other Prussian palseontological autho- 
rities. In Brabant, as at Soignies and Ecaussines, it reposes upon the Lower 
Devonian, and is in every respect the equivalent of the limestones of Panrath, 
Refrath, Miinster-Eifel, and Villmar, in the Rhenish countries. In Devonshire, 
M. de Koninck identifies with this band the limestones of Bradley, Babbacombe, 
and Newton Bushel, and compares it with the Marcellus Schists and Hamilton 
Group of North America. 
In following the Devonian rocks from the Rhine towards Belgium, it is found 
that in their details they differ from those of Westphalia. At Aix-la-Chapelle, 
where the Belgian type may be said to begin, all the members of the series are 
much attenuated. We there find a meagre equivalent only of the Lower Devo- 
nian, — the calcareous representative of the Eifel being but a poor coralline rock, 
in parts dolomitic, followed only by certain nodular schists charged with the 
Receptaculites Neptuni, Defrance, and Spirifer disjunctus, Sow., which alone 
represent the copious masses of Flinz, Kramenzel-Stein, &c. of the previously 
mentioned tracts. 
The Upper Devonian of Belgium (part of the 1 Systeme Eifelien ' and part of the 
'Condrusien inferieur,' Dumont) consists at its base of calcareous schist with no- 
dules, and is specially characterized by its abundance of Clymenias, Goniatites, and 
Favosites ; besides which, it contains Receptaculites Neptuni, Defr., Davidsonia 
Verneuilii, de Kon., Avicula Neptuni, Goldf., Orthis Dumonti, de Vern., Rhyn- 
chonella cuboides, Sow., Cardium palmatum, Goldf., and Cypridina serrato- 
striata, Sandb. 
This band is paralleled with the beds of Budesheim in the Eifel, with the 
red limestones and iron-beds of Nassau described by Sedgwick and myself*, 
with the base of the Petherwin group in Cornwall, with the strata of Neuilly 
(Herault) in France, and the rocks of Elbersreuth and Schubelhammer in Ba- 
varia, illustrated by Count Miinster. It is the Genesee Slate and Tully Limestone 
of North America, and is considered to have its representative in the 'Domanik- 
Schiefer ' of Keyserling, on the banks of the Uchta in the north-eastern extremity 
of Russia-in-Europe, whence the fossils range even into Nova Zembla. 
* See Trans. G-eol. Soc. Lond. ser. 2. vol. vi. p. 250. 
