Physical Geography. 145 



mian rocks are red. As with the thin pellicle of 

 peroxide of iron that incrusts the grains of sand and 

 mud of the Old Eed Sandstone, so the colour of the 

 red Permian sandstones and marls is due to a thin in- 

 crusting pellicle of peroxide of iron, such as I have 

 elsewhere attempted to show is often characteristic of 

 deposits in inland waters. 



I now come to the main point : What were the 

 peculiarities of the Physical Geography of the British 

 area in Permian times ? To explain this I shall partly 

 use the matter published in 1871, in the 'Journal of 

 the Greological Society,' in my paper ' On the Eed 

 Rocks of England of older date than the Trias.' 



First, the plants found in our Permian strata are 

 chiefly of genera, but not of species, common to the 

 Coal-measures, viz., Catamites, Lepidodendron, Wal- 

 chia, Chondrites, Ullmannia, Cardiocarpon, Aletlio- 

 pteris, Sphenopteris, Neuropteris, and many fragments 

 of coniferous wood of undetermined genera. Inland 

 waters would be likely to receive land plants borne into 

 them by rivers, but this yields no certainly conclusive 

 evidence, since land plants are not very uncommon in 

 marine strata of the Lias and Oolites. 



The evidence derived from the remains of Laby- 

 rinthodont Amphibia and of land reptiles, clearly points 

 to the close proximity of land. First, there is the Laby- 

 rinthodont Dasyceps Bucklandi from the red Permian 

 strata near Kenilworth, and next, Lepidotosaurus Duffii, 

 found near the base of the Magnesian Limestone, where 

 it gradually passes into the underlying marl slate, and 

 from the marl slate itself were obtained Proterosaurus 

 Speneri and P. Huxleyi, both, according to Huxley, 

 true land Lacertilian reptiles. Further north, in the 

 red sandstones of the Vale of Eden, Professor Harkness 



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