i58 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



at present. The Alleghany mountains were elevated immediatefy 

 after the coal era. 



The Triassic period, when the red sandstone was deposited, fol- 

 lowed the Permian. The triassic rocks are filled with saurian 

 remains. In the red sandstone of the Connecticut river, are 

 found tracks of birds, kangaroos, reptiles, and also probably of the 

 opossum. The birds whose tracks have been found were of enor- 

 mous size, their tracks showing a stride of seven or eight feet. 

 In this age there were lizards in New Jersey as large as an ele- 

 phant. The bones of an animal supposed to have been a sea ser- 

 pent 140 feet long, have been found and exhibited in the United 

 States ; but it proved to be made up of several individual ani- 

 mals of a species allied to the whale. In the previous age, the 

 fishes were ganoids, protected by thick plates. In this age there 

 w^ere three new orders; those like the shark, with prickly scales, 

 those like the perch, witli fine teeth like the teeth of a comb upon 

 the scales, and those like the gray family. Sharks teeth. Sc- 

 inches in length, have been found in New Jersey, so that there 

 must have been mighty monsters in those waters. The seas in 

 the interior of the continent, as high up as Hudson's Bay, must 

 have been as warm as the waters of the tropics at the present day, 

 for no cold water fish, like the cod, or salmon, were found there 

 in -this age of the world. A great many of the trees now adorn- 

 ing our forests were already in existence at the close of the rep- 

 titian era : the oak, the elm, the maple. Besides these, the cinna- 

 mon tree, which is not now known upon this continent, then 

 flourished in great abundance in the western part of it. About 

 forty trees familiar to us now, have been discovered as having 

 flourished in the Cretaceous age of the world. From Natchez 

 westward to the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, the continent has 

 not since been changed ; but the eastern portion of this continent 

 has changed its level at least 2,500 feet during that time. 



Prof. Seely. — These lectures are suggestive of many thoughts. 

 Geology is only a descriptive history of the facts that have 

 occurred, and not a philosophical history of the causes of things. 

 "When we know the causes of events, we may make prophecies. 

 The day will come, probably, when we shall have the philosophi- 

 cal history of the world. All that we know of chemistry is con- 

 sistent with the facts stated. For example, if the sixty-six ele- 

 ments were created and placed together, they would form a globe j 



