LIFE IN PRIMARY PERIOD 239 



later by Thevenin ; the last-named comes from the Upper 

 Carboniferous of Blanzy. A Rhynchocephala, protected by 

 special laws, still lives in New Zealand, the Sphenodon punctatum 

 or H attend punctata. 



Up to this point all this world of the early Reptiles is a 

 modest one, even in comparison with living forms. But the 

 struggle for life during the Primary Period did not stop here. 

 The way was being prepared for the appearances of monster 

 Reptiles of unknown origin, forming a new order — the 

 Theriodonts. Pareirasaurus appears suddenly and simul- 

 taneously in the neighbourhood of the Dwina in Russia and 

 at the Cape of Good Hope. By what unknown route did 

 such heavy and massive beings make their way from one of 

 these regions to the other, the first being a part of the North- 

 Atlantic Continent and the second of the Gondwana continent, 

 separated, at least since the Devonian Period, by an un- 

 interrupted tropical sea ? Must we put still further back, to 

 the Silurian, in fact, the origin of Reptiles ? To this problem 

 no solution has yet been found. 



Life was already prodigiously developed on the earth when 

 the Primary Epoch closed. But throughout its manifestations 

 there was but a faint foreshadowing of what would follow ; 

 monotony prevailed in the sea as on the land, where, through 

 the warm northern mists, the already much-softened profiles 

 of the eroded Huronian and Caledonian mountains stood 

 out against the sky, whilst in more southern latitudes the 

 young Hercynian chain showed, under an equatorial sun, 

 jagged summits at an even greater altitude than the peaks of 

 our Pyrenees and Alps. 



Everywhere the sea waves buffeted the reefs built by polyps, 

 whose indeterminate shapes could not compare with the 

 brilliant garland of living gems encircling our Polynesian 

 islands and tropical continents. Sponges, which scatter with 

 splashes of gold, lapis, malachite, and scarlet the rocks of our 

 seas to-day, transforming them into palettes of glowing colours, 

 were then elegant but without colour. On the reefs, in the 

 sand and in the mud huge Pterygotus, Eurypterus, Limula, and 

 Trilobites went where they would without fear almost un- 

 disturbed, but from Silurian times onwards were less bold 

 and learned to roll themselves into balls at the slightest 

 alarm. Worms of all kinds, forms, and colours undulated 



