on the west, and was connertrd witli "Europe on the south, 

 and with Scandinavia, over what is now the North Sea or 

 German Ocean, on the east. 



This region had, for a very long period, been in a quiet, 

 tranquil state ; a great contrast to the stormy Permian age 

 which preceded it, when the Alleghany mountains of America 

 and the Pennine Chain of Derbyshire, the back bone of 

 England, were thrown up. 



This vast inland sea was a fresh water lake, which 

 gradually became salt by the concentration of its waters, — like 

 the salt lakes of North America, — and in which sand stones, 

 grey and red marls, salt and gypsum were deposited. 



It is to this inland sea, barren as it was, that we owe 

 the rock salt and brine springs of Worcestershire, Ch.esli;re, 

 and Middlesborough. While, from its deposits of gypsum, (r 

 h5'drated sulphate of lime, we get ornamental alabaster, aid 

 plaster of Paris from which Parian and otiier cements are 

 made. 



In the Railway cutting, leading to Lincoln, bands of 

 blue, red, and grey Keuper marls are seen, each resting on 

 the other. They are the slow and quiet products of this 

 great inland lake, and have no traces of life left in them. 

 Suddenly, however, a wonderful change takes place ; f( r, rest- 

 ing on the uppermost Keuper deposit, and at the same angle 

 with it, appears a broad black band of rock, utterly different 

 from the bed on which it lies. 



The Keuper marls are, as I have said, devoid of fi-ssil 

 remains, but this new deposit abounds, nay literally swarms, 

 Avith them; while, instead of marly deposits, the new strata 

 consist of fissile slaty shales, full of iron pyrites the token of 

 exuberant life, and narrow bands of sandstone gUttering witli 



