Physical Geography. 2 1 1 



Silurian series, and have suffered degradation ever 

 since ; that the chain of the Ural was in existence, for 

 it is of older date than the Permian strata ; that the 

 mountains of the Schwarzwald then rose high into the 

 air, for they are older than the New Red Sandstone ; 

 but the Alps, the Pyrenees, and some other mountain 

 chains, if they existed at all, were in the rudimentary 

 stage of comparatively low lands, feebly indicated by 

 the occasional occurrence of fresh-water beds amid the 

 Oolitic and Purbeck strata, and by such phenomena 

 as the occurrence of Pterodactyles, and the long-tailed 

 Archceopteryx macrura, 1 in the Solenhofen state of 

 Bavaria. 



That a broad low-lying land existed at that time, 

 amid which rose groups and ranges of mountains in 

 what is now Europe, there is no reason to doubt, and 

 how that phase of physical geography came to an end 

 will form part of the subject of next chapter. 



1 A bird with a long vertebrated feathered tail. 



