THE AGE OF REPTILES 



three distinct beds he found in it, though the middle of 

 these, a shelly limestone, does not exist in Great Britain), 

 there was a wide development of large reptiles and 

 amphibians. We cannot enumerate them all, for not one 

 chapter nor one volume would suffice to deal adequately 

 with the reptiles of the Trias formations and of the 

 Jurassic rocks which followed them, and of the Permian 

 which preceded them. But we may speak of some of 

 them. One of the most striking was the Pareiasaurus^ 

 which has been found in the Jurassic sandstones and lime- 

 stones of South Africa, of Russia, of India and Scotland, 

 and of middle England. The skeleton of the Pareia- 

 saurus looks like that of a gigantic pug dog eight feet 

 long; but it was a comparatively harmless animal, the 

 teeth of which show that it largely fed on vegetable 

 food. 



In Sir E. Ray Lankester's lectures on "Extinct 

 Animals'" he described the finding of a great many 

 of these fossil reptiles by Professor Amalitzky on the 

 banks of the River Dwina, near Archangel. There is 

 a cliff of Permian strata on the banks of the Dwina, 

 and in this cliff there is a peculiar pocket or accumula- 

 tion of sandy matter with large hard nodules embedded 

 in it. These nodules are removed and broken up for 

 mending the roads. The pocket seems to be in a fissure 

 and of Triassic age, later, that is to say, than the 

 Permian rocks on either side of it. However that may 

 be, the nodules are usually removed for road-mending, 

 and four or five years ago Professor Amalitzky on visit- 

 ing the spot was astounded and delighted to find that 



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