380 
ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 
The abundance of the heads and stems of lily encrinites, 
Encrimis Uliiformis (Fig. 404), {pv Encrinites mo7iiliformis)^ 
FI«:. 400. 
Palatal teeth of Placodus gigas. 
Miischelkalk. 
shows the slow manner in which some beds of this lime¬ 
stone have been formed in clear 
sea-water. The star-fish called 
Aspidura loricata (Fig. 405) is as 
yet peculiar to the Muschelkalk. 
In the same formation are found 
the skull and teeth of a reptile of 
the genus Placodus (see Fig. 406), 
which was referred originally by 
Munster, and afterwards by Agas¬ 
siz, to the class of fishes. But 
more perfect specimens enabled 
Professor Owen, in 1858, to show 
that this fossil animal was a Sau¬ 
rian reptile, which probably fed on 
shell-bearing mollusks, and used its 
short and flat teeth, so thickly coated with enamel, for 
pounding and crushing the shells. 
Bunter-sandstein. —The Bunter-sandstein consists of vari¬ 
ous-colored sandstones, dolomites, and red clays, wdth some 
beds, especially in the Hartz, of calcareous pisolite or roe¬ 
stone, the whole sometimes attaining a thickness of more 
than 1000 feet. The sandstone of the Vosges is proved, by 
its fossils, to belong to this lowest member of the Triassic 
group. At Sulzbad (or Soultz-les-bains), near Strasburg, on 
the flanks of the Vosges, many 
plants have been obtained from 
the ‘‘bunter,” especially conifers 
of the extinct genus Voltzia^ of 
which the fructification has been 
Out 
Fie:. 40T. 
preserved, (See Fig. 407). 
of thirty species of ferns, cycads, 
conifers, and other plants, enum¬ 
erated by M. Ad. Brongniaft, in 
1849, as coming from the “ Gres 
bigarre,” or Bunter, not one is 
common to the Keuper. 
The foot-prints of Labyrintho- 
don observed in the clays of this formation at Hildburg- 
hausen, in Saxony, have already been mentioned. Some 
idea of the variety and importance of the terrestrial verte¬ 
brate fauna of the three members of the Trias in Northern 
Germany may be derived from the fact that in the great 
monograph by the late Hermann von Meyer on the reptiles 
a. Voltzia heterophylla. (Syn. VoU- 
zia hrevifolia.) b. Portion of same 
majjnified to show fructitication. 
Sulzbad. Bunter-sandstein. 
