BY PROFESSOR STEPHEXS, M.A. 605 



eliaracter. The climate seems to be cold and moist. Tlie 

 mountains are still fringed with pines, and haunted by mists 

 which distil perpetual through not excessive rain. There are no 

 violent floods or torrents. Fine sands are deposited in level 

 strands along the lake margins, and mud-banks further out. 

 Here and there beds of greyish-green Equisetums grow up 

 like reeds through the water. — (Vertehmria). Similar brakes 

 line the shore, while on the dry ground we see a variety of ferns, 

 springing from the earth, climbing growling trees, and clothing 

 drift wood. But the vegetation in general does not differ from 

 that of the last epoch. There must be insects present, but we 

 see none : and there is no sign of any land or fresh- water snail 

 that carries a shell. There are fish to be sure (Palceoniscus &c.) 

 in the waters, but no other vertebrates. 



This is the period of the Lower Capertee Shales. 



After this the waters gradually deepen and gain on the land. 

 There is no question in these fresh- water formations as to whether 

 this is due to sinking of land or rising of water. The latter alone 

 is the cause here. Just as certainly as the variations of sea level 

 depend on slow vertical oscillation of the land, does the encroach- 

 ment or retirement of a lake result from the increase or decrease 

 of its contents. Accordingly the smaller lakes unite with one 

 another and with the larger, until a large and deep sheet of water 

 with a heavy wash upon the shore, fliictihus etfremitu surgens 

 marino^ extends to the very foot of the hills. And now great 

 beds of white sands, varying from the finest grain to coarse gravel, 

 the quartz detritus of granitic and metamorphic rocks, intermixed 

 with small pebbles out of the old (Devonian) conglomerates, 

 begin to form over large areas. These are the Capertee Grits. 

 They contain no fossils, as is consistent with the uiodQ of their 

 formation. 



At length the waters ceased to rise. Broad islands and banks 

 of the finest clays spread themseh-es out from the shore upon the 

 sands just described. The lake is again diversified with shoals 



