OOLITIC SYSTEM. 165 
and we have instead short palm-like trees, like the modern cycas. The 
vegetation is mostly of a tropical kind. 
Animals are far from abundant, but are more numerous than the plants. 
We have no corals, few encrinites, and bone-plated fishes are rare. There 
are a few shells, some crustaceans, and several great shark-like fishes. 
Reptiles, however, are numerous and of gigantic size. One brute in par- 
ticular, called the Labyrinthodon, from the labyrinth-like. structure of a 
section of its teeth, is an uncouth, frog-like creature, with great staring 
eyes, and immense toothed jaws. The most abundant remains in the 
Triassic are the great footprints of large lizards. These are found 
in Scotland, but are so numerous in America, that above one hundred 
species of creatures have been distinguished, as indicated by these foot- 
prints. Huge birds, too, were numerous, and have also left their marks 

Fig. 89.—Labyrinthodon. 
upon the rocks.. These rocks furnish the earliest evidences of warm- 
blooded mammals. 
Scenery.—The scenery of the old Triassic age is peculiar, and we can 
form but a dim notion regarding it. We can easily see that the seas were 
shallow with bordering lagoons, in which the salt waters were evaporated 
in the strong sun-rays, and left the salt-beds that are now of such service 
tous. By the muddy rivers lived great crocodiles, that lurked amid the 
reeds and pines, and fed on shell-fish and crustaceans, and left their foot- 
prints on the yielding mud, while on the dry plains above grew plants 
adapted for an arid soil and tropical climate. 
IX.—Oolitic System. 
Description—We have now arrived at a remarkable epoch, whose 
remains, abundant and wonderful, have been more fully investigated and 
described by celebrated men than perhaps any other. We begin also a 
new epoch in geologic history; the forms of life, habits, and scenery 
are more like those of our own times, and can therefore be restored with 
the greater certainty. 
The term Oolitic is applied to a series of rocks which in England form 
three distinct groups—the Lias, Oolite Proper, and Wealden. 
* 
