Dr. Feistmantel — Bohemian Coal Fauna and Passage- Beds. 117 
In the mean time I entered into correspondence with Prof. Weiss 
in Berlin, who classified in a similar manner the Saarbrücken Coal- 
field, and he communicated to me bis opinion that our Nürschan 
Gas-coal will most probably be analogous to his Otweiler Series, 
forming the transition from the Carboniferous to the true Permian, 
which he stated also in an expose in the Zeitschr. d. D. geolog. 
Gesellsch. 1874, pp. 367-69, referring to my paper Yerh. d. bohm. 
Kohlen zur Permform, l.c.” ; he could not deny the fact, that the 
Carboniferous and Permian strata appear only as members of one 
formation, to show which was always my chief inten tion ; this State- 
ment of Weiss was therefore a great satisfaction to me. But I yet 
must recall to mind that Weiss himself gave as characteristic for his 
Otweiler Series a Carboniferous Flora, without a Permian Fauna, 
which, however, is so numerous in our Gas-coals at Nürschan (and 
Rakonitz), that they certainly never can be mistaken for Carbon- 
iferous. 
In consequence of this I adopted, in a certain way, Herr Weiss’s 
view (in a letter to Dr. Geinitz, in Leonh. und Gein. Jahrb. 1874), 
considering this Nürschan Gas-coal (therefore the whole upper seam) 
as passage-beds, which may be called Otweiler Series, in the Saar- 
brück basin, but strongly advocating the close connexion of this with 
the Permian formation, and citing the abundance of Xenacanthus, 
Acanthodes, etc. 
This view I used afterwards again in my general works, 1 but only 
for the Nürschan Gas-coal, considering it parallel with Weiss’s 
Otweiler Series, as passage-beds, while the Rakonitz Gas-coal I 
placed at the beginning of the Permian. 
I gave the following table : 
{ The true Red Sandstones, with Permian Fauna and Flora. 
Spherosiderites of Züow and Ledec. 
Rakonitz Gas-coal. 
! ' Above Carboniferous Flora. 
Nürschan Gas-coal, with Permian Fauna and Carbonifeious Flora. 
Upper seam of the Coal-field at foot of the Riesengebirge, near 
v Radowenz. 
True 
Carboniferous 
| Lower Coal-seam distriet. 
This was the state of the question, on my part, 2 when I left for 
India, engaged on the Geological Survey, after having examined for 
four years the Bohemian Coal-fields. 
When all the above was written, for the most part with the approval 
of Mr. Krejci, Professor of Geology, and Dr. Ant. Fritsch, Professor 
of Zoology and Palaeontology in Prague, two visitors, Herr Stur, 
1 Studien im Gebiete des bohm. Kohlengebirges ; Abh. d. k. bohm. Gesellsch. d. 
Wissenschaften, 1874. Yerst. d. bohm. Kohlenabl., Cassel, 1874-76. 
2 My paper, “ Studien in Kohlengebirge,” etc., was later discussed in Nature, 
July 27, 1876, p. 270, where the reviewer concludes as follows : “ But faults like 
these will not detract from the real value of the work ; when the time comes for a 
rectification of boundaries on the Permo-Carboniferous frontier, the vast mass of 
carefully-observed facts which it furnishes will form no unimportant contribution to 
the body of evidence by which the question must be decided. The author may have 
been premature in his conclusions, but his industry and application have produced a 
work that will have a permanent value.” 
