578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I will now discuss the conditions under which the British Permian 

 strata were deposited. These rocks in their general characters very- 

 much resemble the Rothliegende, Kupfers chief er or Marl-slate, and 

 Zechstein of the Thuringerwald and other parts of Germany, with 

 this difference, that where the English Magnesian Limestone (Zech- 

 stein) is in force between Tynemouth and Nottingham, there are no 

 red sandstones, marls, and conglomerates (Rothliegende), between the 

 limestone and the Coal-measures, and in all the other parts of Britain 

 where the red sandstones, etc., occur, there is only in two instances a 

 little magnesian limestone lying, not at the top, but in the midst of, or 

 interstratified with, the sandy and marly series. 



The Permian marls, sandstones, conglomerates, and subangular 

 breccias of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Lancashire, North 

 "Wales, the Vale of Eden, and the south of Scotland, are all red, and, in 

 fact, I nowhere recollect any important gray, yellow, or brown shales 

 and sandstones among them. It is, however, foreign to my present 

 purpose to discuss minor stratigraphical details, or any questions con- 

 nected with English and Continental equivalent geological horizons of 

 Permian age, nor is it necessary to do more than allude to the disturb- 

 ances and denudations which preceded the unconformable deposition 

 of our Permian strata, on all or any of the Palaeozoic formations of 

 earlier date. It is enough if I am able to show good reason for my 

 belief that all of our Permian strata were deposited, not in the sea, 

 but in the inland waters of lakes, which were probably mostly salt, 

 but may possibly sometimes have been fresh or brackish. 



As with the red strata of the Old Red Sandstone, so I consider that 

 the red coloring-matter of the Permian sandstones and marls is due to 

 the precipitation of peroxide of iron in a lake or lakes, in the manner 

 already stated, and the nearly total absence of sea-shells, in by far the 

 largest part of the areas occupied by the strata colored red, strongly 

 points to this conclusion. There is other evidence bearing upon the 

 question. The British plants of Permian age were mostly of genera 

 common in the Coal-measures, though of different species. Among 

 them there are Calamites and Lepidodendron, Walchia, Chondrites, 

 Ullmania, Cardiocarpon, Alethopterls, Sp>henopteris, JVeuropteris, and 

 many fragments of undetermined coniferous wood. This, however, 

 forms no perfectly conclusive proof of the lacustrine origin of the 

 strata, though it is not unlikely that land-plants, drifted by rivers, 

 should have been water-logged and buried in the sediments of lakes. 



The evidence derived from Reptilian remains more strongly points 

 in the same direction. First we have the Labyrinthodont Amphibian, 

 Dasyceps BucJclandi, from the Permian sandstones near Kenilworth ; 

 next the footprints mentioned by Prof. Harkness in the red sand- 

 stones of the Vale of Eden ; and again, the numerous footprints in the 

 sandstones of Corncockle Moor, in Dumfriesshire, long ago described 

 by Sir William Jardine. All of these prints indicate that the Amphibia 



