.DIR'SCHATI, a t. in Prussia, in the government of Dantzic, on the Vistula, a railway junction, 20 m. s.e. of Dantzie; pop. '75, 9,727. There is considerable trade and industrial activity; but the chief claim of the place to attention is the lattice-work iron bridge over the river, built in 1850-57, 2,726 ft. long, with six spans of 410 ft. each. It affords passage for the railway between Konigsberg and Berlin, for two ordinary carriage roads, and two sideways for foot passengers.
the quarrymen's name, introduced into geology, of several layers which occur in the lower Purbeck beds (q.v.), having the appearance of black dirt. They rest on the fren-water beds of the lower Purbeck, and consist of one principal layer, from 12 to 18 in. thick, and from two to four thinner layers. The substance is, to a large extent, a dark-brown or blackish earthy lignite, being the remains of an ancient vege table soil. Through it are dispersed, in considerable abundance, rounded fragments of stones from 3 to 9 in. in diameter. Fossil cycads and zamias are the predominant
vegetable remains; they occupy their original upright position, having become fossil on the spots where they grew. The stumps stand erect for a height of from one to three, or even more feet, and at distances from each other similar to what may be observed in a recent forest. Besides these, the dirt-bed contains the silicified stems of coniferous trees, laid prostrate in fragments 3 or 4 ft. in length. The marine oolitic limestone, called Portland stone, was overspread with fluviatile mud, which became the soil on which a forest of cycads and zamias grow, and this was afterwards submerged without any violent agitation, since the layer of black earth has not been abraded, and then was covered with standing fresh water, from which the beds of calcareous mud, now con verted into slate, were deposited.