390                                                 SILURIA.                                     [Chap. XVI.
 

CHAPTER XVI.

PALEOZOIC ROCKS OF THE HARZ, THE RHENISH PROVINCES OF

PRUSSIA, AND BELGIUM.

UPPER   SILURIAN,   DEVONIAN,   AND   CARBONIFEROUS   ROCKS   OP  THE   HARZ.----DEVONIAN   AND

CARBONIFEROUS   ROCKS   OP  THE   RIIINIO   AND   ITS   AFFLUENTS.—DEVONIAN   AND   CARBONI¬
FEROUS  DEPOSITS  OP  WESTPHALIA  AND   BELGIUM.

In advancing westwards from Central Germany, by the Harz *, to the
Rhenish Provinces of Prussia, the geologist loses aU traces of the Lower
SUurian rocks of Bohemia, Saxony, and the Thuringerwald; whilst, with
a little Upper Silurian, the Devonian and Carboniferous deposits become
vastly more expanded. Yet, with this absence of the oldest fossihferous
strata, the regions under consideration present as venerable an exterior,
and contain rocks possessing quite as crystalline a structure, as those of
which we have just taken leave. For, if we first glance at the range of
the Harz—that shrine at which many poets have worshipped Nature in
fantastic forms, and where the German geologist long regarded his old
^ Grauwacke' as a mass the order and age of which could never be
defined,—its chief portions were first ascertained by Sedgwick and my¬
self f to be of no more remote antiquity than the Devonian era.

The giant Brocken itself, sanctified by many an ancient legend, is a
mere upstart, compared with the surrounding eruptive masses, which dis¬
turbed the bottom of the primeval sea. That mountain is composed of
two kinds of granite, which, having burst forth long after the slaty rocks
of Carboniferous age had been accumulated, has through ages of decom¬
position been arranged into those chaotic pUes or ' Felsen-Meere,' so gra-
phicaUy described by Leopold von Buch. Again, subsequent outbursts of
porphyry, during the accumulation of the Permian deposits, were also
manifestations of the subterranean forces which produced the last great
elevation of the Harz, and gave to the chain as well as the surrounding
Secondary formations their present outline; for, unlike the prevalent
north-east and south-west strike of the older rocks in most parts of Eu-

* I first visited the Harz in 1S.30, and secondly     Morris was my companion (see Quart. Journ.
in 1839,—on both occasions in company vrith Prof.     Geol. Soc. Lond. vol. xi. p. 409); and my last ex-
Sedgwick; and the general order of the chain,     cursion to the same tract was in iSoT, accompanied
which we published in 1839, has proved substan-     by Prof Eupert Jones. On my own part I am
tially correct,—subject always to that reformed     bound to state that the doubt expressed in a
interpretation of the exact relative value of the     note, p. 362, of the first edition of this work, con-
various sedimentary rocks which is now applied     cerning the existence of Upper Silurian rocks in
to this tract and the Rhenish Provinces. By re-     the Harz, has now been removed, and that, in any
ferring to that instructive work, the ' Palajontogra-     fresh issue of the Geological Map of Europe, I
phica ' of Dunker and Hermann von Meyer, the     will endeavour to represent (if the small scale
reader, in obtaining much information respecting     admit of it) the existence of Silurian as well
the fossils of the Harz, as described by Adolf    as of Devonian and Carboniferous rocks in the
Eijmer,  will   perceive,  at p.  71, vol. ii.  part 2,     Harz.

how inverted and confused the order of succession        t See Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond., 2nd ser. vol. vi.

appears.    My next visit was in 1854, when Prof.     pp. 283 &c.