10 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD. 



THE PEliMIAN PERIOD. 



The Permian period was not remarkable for the 

 introduction of new forms of animal life. Its principal 

 features were the swift decadence of the luxurious flora 

 which had embellished our earth during the gradual 

 formation of the coal measures, and the upheaval of 

 lofty highlands, of hills, and steep banks, which con- 

 tracted the broad river estuaries and wide-spreading 

 lakes within more moderate limits. Dome-shaped 

 eminences of porphyry and syenite were raised on the 

 earth's surface. Vast columns of steam and vapour 

 rose from the midst of the sea, and condensing in the 

 cooler atmosphere, fell in heavy torrents of rain. The 

 evaporation of water on so extensive a scale was accom- 

 panied by an equally extensive 

 disengagement of electricity, 

 which illuminated the grey 

 shadows of the world with 

 incessant flashes of brilliant 

 lightning, while over the boil- 

 ing sea rolled peal upon peal 

 of reverberating thunder. The 

 Permian ocean, it is unques- 

 tionable, overspread an im- 

 mense area of the globe. It 

 stretched from Ireland to the 

 Ural mountains, and probably 

 to Spitzbergen, while its nor- 

 thern boundary would be 

 defined (as geologists tell us) 

 by the Carboniferous, Devon- 

 ian, Silurian, and igneous 

 regions of Scotland, Scandin- 

 avia, and Northern Russia; 

 its southern limits apparently 

 extending far to the south of 

 Europe. "The chain of the 

 Vosges, stretching across 

 Rhenish Bavaria, the Grand 

 Duchy of Baden, as far as 

 Saxony and Silesia, would be 

 under water. They would 

 , communicate with the ocean which covered all the mid- 

 land ami western counties of England and part of Russia. 

 In other regions of Europe the continent varied little 

 since the Devonian and Carboniferous ages. In France 

 the central plateau would form a great island, which 

 extended towards the south, probably as far as the foot 

 of the Pyrenees : another island would consist of the 

 mass of Brittany. In Russia the continent would have 

 extended itself considerably towards the east : finally, 

 it is probable that at the end of the Carboniferous period 

 the Belgian continent would stretch from the depart- 

 ments of the Pas-de-Calais and Du Nord, in France, 

 and would extend up to and beyond the Rhine." 



The Permian formation is usually divided by geolo- 

 gists into three series of strata : 



The New Red Sandstone (the lowest) ; 



Magnesian Limestone, or Zechstein (next in order) ; 

 and 



Permian, or Sandstone of the Vosges (uppermost). 



The fossil remains of the new red sandstone, which 



attains a thickness of from 300 to 600 feet, and is found 

 over great part of Germany, in the Vosges, and in 

 England, are very few. 



The dark schist beds of the magnesian limestone, 

 which both in England and Germany attains a thick- 

 ness of about 450 feet, are remarkably rich in the 

 memorials of peculiar genera of fishes. 



The Permian strata, which also occur in England, 

 and in the government of Perm, in Russia (whence their 

 name), on a very extensive scale, are characterized by 

 scattered evidences of past organic life. 



The principal points to which the attention of the 

 naturalist may here be directed are :- 



Certain forms of Sauroid fishes, as the Pulcwnisctis 

 and Platysomus / 



Laliyrinthodon restored. One-twentieth natural size. 



The Lahyrinthodont reptiles ; 



The Bird-like and Reptilian footprints (Ichnites) on 

 the new red sandstone ; and 



The first appearance of Mammalian life, under a 

 marsupial form, in the Dromatherium. 



In the Palceoniscus, the Platysomus, and other fishes 

 of the Permian period, we find the upper tail-fin much 

 longer than the lower, the vertebral column being con- 

 tinued in the upper caudal lobe, as in the Amblyptents 

 of the coal measures, and the sturgeon and shark of 

 existing seas. This arrangement Agassiz calls "hetero- 

 cercal." These genera, in all probability, lived in the 

 shore-waters, and never ventured far out into the wide 

 ocean. 



The Labyrinthodon. Geologists were moved to 

 wonder some years ago when they discovered the im- 

 pressions of the foot of a strange animal in the new red 

 sandstone impressions closely resembling the marks 

 that would be made in soft clay by the outstretched 

 fingers and thumb of the human hand. 



