Chap. XVI.] 
INVERSIONS OF STEATA. 
403 
veying a just idea of the nature and contents of the older deposits of this 
interesting region, it would he still more imperfect if a reference, however 
cursory, were not made to the phenomenon of the inversion of some of its 
stratified rocks. Adopting M. Dumont's explanation of such reversals 
of the normal order in Belgium, Professor Sedgwick and myself applied 
it to account for the position of certain masses of the Eifel country. We 
pointed out how, near Miinster-Eifel, the overturning of the beds had 
been produced by movements which acted throughout masses of sediment 
several thousand feet in thickness. The phenomenon is illustrated by 
this diagram f. 
Inversion in the Eifel explained. 
Weingarten. Miinster-Eifel. 
Strata in order. Strata bent over and inverted. 
c. Eifel Limestone and Shale. 
a, b. Shelly Devonian greywacke. 
In this case, whether by following the strata upon their strike, or by 
making a short traverse across them, as in the preceding section, the true 
order was soon detected. 
Again, on the northern or outer frontier of the Devonian rocks of 
"Westphalia, where the order is very regular, all such strata being seen to 
plunge under the Carboniferous beds, as before explained, the attention 
of the observer is roused when, exploring north-westwards to Brilon, he 
finds a large tract of country (much penetrated by very ancient igneous 
rocks) towards Berleburg, exhibiting everywhere the older beds overlying 
the younger. This phenomenon, long ago known to the Prussian geolo- 
gists von Dechen and Erbreich, is expressed in this woodcut, taken from 
part of a larger section published by my colleague and myself in the Geo- 
logical Transactions %. 
Inverted Strata South of Brilon. 
N.N.W. 
S.S.E. 
Brilon. 
c. Lower Carboniferous schists (Kiesel-Schiefer and Posidonomyen-Schiefer). 
b. Upper Devonian schist, limestone, and iron-ore 1 p £ 
a. Slaty Devonian rocks J 
# Bands of igneous rocks. 
Jevoman. 
t From Trans. G-eol. Soc. ser. 2. vol. vi. p. 277. 
I See Sedgwick and Murchison, Trans. Geol. 
Soc. Lond. ser. 2. vol. vi. p. 239. The woodcut in the 
Geological Transactions shows the Coal-strata to 
the north covered by Cretaceous rocks. 
2 J) 2 
