PERMIAN AGE AND CLOSE OF THE PALEOZOIC. 171 



America the case was different. In all that immense 

 area which extends from the Atlantic to the plains 

 east of the Mississippi, we know no Permian rocks, 

 unless a portion of those reckoned as Upper Carboni- 

 ferous, or Permo-carboniferous in Virginia, Nova 

 Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, should be included 

 in this group. If such existed, they may possibly be 

 covered up in some places by more modern deposits, 

 or may have been swept away by denudation in the 

 intervening ages ; but even in these cases we should 

 expect to find some visible remains of them. Their 

 entire absence would seem to indicate that a vast, and 

 in many parts rugged and elevated, continent repre- 

 cented North America in the Permian period. Yet if 

 so, that great continent is an absolute blank to us. 

 We know nothing of the animals or plants which may 

 have lived on it, nor do we even know with certainty 

 that it had active volcanoes, or snow-clad mountain a 

 sending down glaciers. 



Our picture of the Permian World has not been 

 inviting, yet in many respects it was a world more like 

 that in which we live than was any previous one. It 

 certainly presented more of variety and grand physical 

 features than any of the previous ages ; and we might 

 have expected that on its wide and varied continents 

 some new and higher forms of life would have been 

 introduced. But it seems rather to have been intended 

 to blot out the old Palaeozoic life, as an arrangement 

 which had been fully tried and served its end, pre- 

 paratory to a new beginning in the succeeding age. 



